Five Times Spock Scared Chekov
by Lilith Luciferia
Summary: and One Time He Didn't. Spock seems to frighten so many people without intending or realizing it. Here are related the tales of five times Pavel Chekov fell victim to this phenomenon, and one time Spock wasn't so bad. My first story. Reviews are adored.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** I am finally doing it—posting my first story. I have never done this before and as I am intensely private about my writing this is a big step for me. However, I shall not bore you all with my many insecurities. Here it is, the first part at least, and I hope some of you will find it, if nothing else, semi-enjoyable. Reviews and constructive criticism are immensely appreciated. If all goes well (both writing and reviewing) I will be updating the following parts periodically. (Also—I am borderline-obsessive about grammar and spelling, so if you see anything horribly amiss in that regard, please message me and let me know.) Thank you in advance for reading/reviewing, and now, without further ado, I present—

_Five Times Spock Scared Chekov__ (and One Time He Didn't)_

Chapter 1

It was Pavel's third year at Starfleet Academy, and the sixteen-year-old boy genius was cruising easily through his classes. All advanced and honors courses, of course, because not only would it allow him to acquire much more useful learning in a shorter amount of time, it would at least provide some chance for Pavel not to spend his entire four-year span (more or less, depending on when and if he decided to take additional courses) of Academy classes being bored out of his mind. He was, as most people put it, too smart for his own good. It wasn't boasting; it was simply fact. He'd breezed through both elementary- and high school-level math and physics classes with flying colors, never receiving anything less than 100%. He loved math, he truly did, and he was brilliant at it, and it had seemed a waste to leave such talent stuck sitting in some dingy, cramped old regular high school classroom listening to some old professor drone on about a lot of matter that Pavel already knew like he knew his own name.

So when the opportunity came, Pavel had leapt at the chance to skip the last few years of high school courses and graduate early to go on to college. He'd considered his choices carefully, mostly taking into account what kinds of math and physics classes were offered at each university. Then again, it eventually occurred to him that he didn't want the kind of college that only prepared its students to become stuffy old men in stark white lab coats, the kind who spent their entire lives locked away in a lab, poring endlessly over infinite sets of numbers, trying to find the elusive connection between the X-Y axis and the density of pickle slices. Certainly, Pavel loved working with numbers—he often did extra problems for fun, much to the utter bemusement and often chagrin of his roommates, especially when he became fervently engaged in the activity at two o'clock in the morning or some such "ungodly hour"—but all the same, there was no way he wanted to spend his entire career as some crazy recluse, tied to a desk the whole day. He didn't think he wanted to be a professor, either. Standing in front of group of students after group of students, lecturing them the entire day, teaching them the same methods, theories, and applications over and over again, year after year, for the rest of his life—yeah, that didn't sound like a very appealing prospect at all.

Then, one fateful day, the perfect solution had struck him—Starfleet Academy. It was one of the foremost schools on the planet, probably in the galaxy, and they would have no trouble accommodating geniuses like Pavel and providing for all his academic needs. Furthermore, they offered exciting opportunities. If he could make it through all the required training courses, Pavel could achieve a position not only working with his beloved math and physics, he could do it on a starship, all the while traveling throughout the galaxy, encountering and documenting new species, gaining new allies for the Federation of Planets, and maybe even experiencing the occasional thrilling battle in space.

It was the perfect marriage of computer work and adventure, and once he'd made up his mind, Pavel had wasted no time in applying to Starfleet, and Starfleet had wasted no time accepting. Despite the worries of his parents, Pavel had packed his belongings, bid his family a fond farewell, and left Russia for San Francisco.

Certainly, it had been somewhat difficult at first having to adjust to a new schedule, a new living situation, and new classes, a transition magnified by the fact that Pavel was a mere teenager, a minor, attending college among thousands of students all years older than he was. The vast majority of them were still young people, in their early twenties more or less, and obviously considerably intelligent given their status of attending the Academy…and yet Pavel couldn't help feeling a little out of place sometimes. He wasn't a recluse, but he was somewhat shy and didn't always make friends that easily. He found the wild partying scene more intimidating than fun, and instead preferred to stay quietly home in his dorm, or sometimes fill his free time with extra courses and tutoring sessions. So no, he was not the most popular student, if indeed most of them knew of him at all, unless they had caught word of "the crazy Russian whiz kid".

Nevertheless, Pavel loved being at Starfleet. The classes were stimulating, if not always his favorite subjects, and most of the students were decent, though the same could not always be said of all the teachers.

Starfleet was supposed to boast some of the best professors in the quadrant. And, generally, it would seem that this was indeed the case. However, as far as Pavel was concerned, some of them were just downright bad. Some seemed simply incapable of teaching a single lesson in a way that even remotely made sense. Some of them were apparently too lazy to bother teaching anything but the bare minimum and expected students to figure most of it out on their own. A few of them didn't seem to have the merest clue about what they were even teaching.

Still, there was always one particular professor that, from the moment Pavel had attended his class for the first time, had always caught his attention. Not necessarily in a bad way—well, not bad at all, really. Yet there were certain things about him that made Pavel uncomfortable.

Lieutenant Commander Spock certainly stood out physically, as far as professors (and most students as well, for that matter) went. The Vulcan's pale skin, sharp, elegantly pointed ears, and dark upswept eyebrows certainly made him difficult to miss, even among a student body of which no small part was comprised of aliens, many much more outlandish and bizarre in appearance than he. Maybe it was his height—skinny but tall, Spock was a pretty big guy, and towered at least an inch or two over most of the cadets and other professors. Maybe it was his stern, typical Vulcan countenance—the one with the never-changing expression of…a lack of expression. It would likely be impossible to pinpoint precisely what it was that made Spock stand out—but for some unknown reason, Spock scared Pavel out of his wits.

It wasn't that he disliked Spock. Sure, Spock wasn't talkative, wasn't friendly, and never joked or smiled or did anything to suggest that he was anything less than utterly serious. On the other (and probably more important) hand, he was a great teacher. The first time Pavel had seen him, he'd been shocked by how young Spock was. He'd heard all the tales of the Vulcan professor, the one that few seemed to hate but no one really liked either. He'd also heard that Spock was a Starfleet graduate, and brilliant even by Vulcan standards, but nevertheless he hadn't been expecting someone that was no more than ten years older than Pavel himself. To his credit, however, Spock not only clearly knew what he was talking about, he was actually genuinely good at teaching. Surprisingly so, in some ways—the few courses he taught, while most of them were not _extremely_ esoteric, tended to be on the more difficult side to begin with, so it was truly remarkable that the Vulcan managed to impart them in such a way that they actually made relative sense to the average slightly-smarter-than-average student, especially considering that Spock regularly used so many 'big words' in his typical speech that some would have a hard time deducing the meaning of his words were he informing them that their own pants were aflame. And not only did the material make sense, the classes actually weren't boring. Of course to the average student, honors physics and sciences and xenolinguistics courses did not tend to be the most engaging subjects in the world—but unlike some professors, Spock managed them in such a way that, surprisingly, did _not_ engender the entire student body to want to beat themselves over the heads with sledgehammers. (Or fall asleep in class, suddenly keel over, catch their faces on the edge of a desk, and knock a few teeth out, which ironically enough had happened before.) Strange, it seemed, that Spock could go on and on in that deep monotone voice of his, seemingly devoid of emotion and inflection, and yet somehow not sound like an automated robot—or more likely, some droning lullaby that put half the students to sleep.

All in all, as a professor, Pavel liked Spock, really, quite a bit. Though he wasn't animated, he was talented and undeniably smart; he was tough but never unreasonable; he was hard to please and sometimes meticulous, but fair and always ready with a calm correction and truly helpful explanation for why something was or was not right, without ever being demeaning; his teaching was thorough and fairly engaging, and he actually invited individual questions and class discussions. Hence, ideal as far as the somewhat overachieving, slightly nerdy student like Pavel was concerned.

The only downside—Spock, as a person, was downright intimidating. Pavel knew he was not alone in the sentiment either; he had yet to encounter one cadet who wasn't terrified of the Vulcan professor, at least initially. Not that Spock was mean or anything; that wasn't it at all. Pavel's best guess was that it was likely the stern countenance and demeanor, the seeming coldness and void of emotion and humor, and the simple perfection—a brain like a computer, the cold efficiency, the ramrod-straight posture, the way he moved with the elegant grace of a cat—all that combining with the total aura of distance and severity. Spock's entire air commanded respect. Of course there would always be students who, out of class, drunk at the bar some evening, mocked certain characteristics of all their professors, and Pavel assumed Spock was not exempt from this. He didn't think he'd ever heard any of them say anything _nice_ about Spock—that was to be expected that students who were all frightened of him in one way or another would exchange all the horrifying details with each other outside of class—but he doubted any of them would ever dare to gossip about Spock in the Vulcan's presence, out of lecture hall earshot or not. Well, excepting the comments from certain students who, despite their being terrified of the Vulcan himself, still could not be deterred from remarking upon Spock's posterior end, the quality of which, apparently, if the comments were anything to go by, was quite above average.

Oh well. Pavel could analyze the matter until he was blue in the face, but it wouldn't change a thing. For right now, he had an immediate problem.

Pavel enjoyed Admiral Archer's physics class. "How many physics classes do you _need_?" most would (and did) say, but he truly did enjoy it. Moreover, he wanted a thorough knowledge of it, and that meant having a thorough understanding. So, whenever there was something he wasn't entirely clear on (which, admittedly, usually meant he had a better grasp on it than the rest of his classmates), as a rule Pavel made it a point to find time to ask his instructor, one on one, and get the matter cleared up. He didn't mind the extra time out of his day for private tutoring, and in fact he rather enjoyed the sessions. The trouble this time around had been relativistic physics. That wasn't the Problem. As soon as the daily class session was over, Pavel, before scampering out the door to his next class, had made his way down to the Admiral's desk. Archer, who liked Pavel and was by now familiar enough with his habits to guess what the visit was about, had smiled and welcomed Pavel's request for a tutoring session. Always appreciative of his student's eager dedication and curiosity, Archer was, of course, perfectly happy to help, and Friday morning, 0900 hours, had been agreed upon for their meeting.

But come the following afternoon, Thursday, plans had changed. That wasn't the Problem either.

Archer was going to be occupied Friday, being called away from his classroom for an unexpected but necessary meeting of the Starfleet admiralty. Pavel had expressed his slight disappointment at the realization that they were going to have to put off their scheduled tutoring session, but accepted the circumstances easily. It was no big deal, after all. They'd simply have to reschedule.

"I'm sorry about breaking our meeting, Mr. Chekov," Archer had said sincerely. "But not to worry—I know understanding this material is important to you, so I took the liberty of fixing you up an alternative."

At that, Pavel had perked up a little, though he was at once curious. "Really? What kind of alternatiwe, sir?"

"Well," Archer had replied, "since the meeting is only of the admiralty, and most of the other professors should still be available, I figured, why make you miss your session just because ten of us aren't going to be around? So I actually went ahead and set up for you to meet with another professor tomorrow to talk to about this stuff, same time, so you don't need to mix up whatever plans you've already made."

Pavel was grateful for the consideration, but he was admittedly doubtful. "Zank you, sir; zat is wery kind of you," he began uncertainly, "but…are you sure ze ozer professors know what zey are doing with zis subject? I mean," he amended, suddenly trying not to blush furiously, "are zey as knowledgeable about it as you are?"

Archer laughed good-naturedly. "Well, you're right to ask, Cadet; some of these clowns wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of it to anybody. But don't worry—I made sure to get someone who definitely knows what he's talking about. I set you up tomorrow to meet with Lieutenant Commander Spock." Pavel had felt his breath go out of him and his eyes bulge a little as the Admiral smiled beatifically. "I assure you, he's more than fully capable of teaching you all you need to know."

And _that_ was the Problem.

It was also how Pavel found himself wobbling along on his way to Spock's office this morning, PADDs in tow, practically shaking in his boots (hence the wobbling). He'd barely slept the night before. But in the face of his anxiety, at least he didn't feel tired.

_Pull yourself together_, he thought sternly at himself, making his way along the too-empty corridors of the Academy. Honestly, how bad could this be? Hell, Spock was amazingly smart, so Pavel should be elated at this opportunity for one-on-one learning time with the Vulcan. And besides, how bad could _Spock_ really be? Sure, he was serious…and stern…and big…and really strong…and had scary eyebrows…_but at least he's vegetarian…I think…_

Pavel blinked and actually physically shook himself, cutting off that line of thought. Okay—sure, Spock was serious and stern. But that didn't make him mean. Pavel had been in a lot of periods with him, and he _knew_ Spock wasn't mean. Firm, and harsh, sometimes, but not mean. Anyway, Pavel was a good kid, and a good student—it wasn't like he would end up causing any trouble to bring the fiery wrath of Spock the Great and Terrible raining down upon himself. Okay…since Spock never got mad, maybe "the icy Vulcan eyebrows of Doom of Spock the Great and Terrible" was a more fitting description. Damn, Pavel needed to stop with these dramatic mind wanderings. The point was, Pavel was an angel through and through, and a pretty smart one at that. No reason Spock would come down on him for anything.

The bad part was, Pavel _knew_ this—he was in all reasonable thought certain of it—but it didn't stop the nervous fluttering sensation inside his chest.

Mercifully, however, when he arrived outside Spock's office (two minutes ahead of the scheduled time, he congratulated himself), the door was shut. For a moment Pavel considered sounding the door chime, or even just knocking, but then thought better of it. He was a little early anyway, and Spock might be busy. Pavel figured that must be the case because he heard the faint but recognizable sound of voices escaping through the door. He couldn't make out any words and few details of the voices themselves, but since it would seem that Spock was otherwise occupied for the time being, Pavel stepped back a few paces from the doors (let it never be said that Pavel Chekov was guilty of eavesdropping on a superior) and stood quietly in the center of the vacant little corridor, patiently waiting his turn.

He had only been standing there for a few seconds, however, before the voices became markedly louder, and closer to the door—or rather, one voice in particular. Pavel blinked for a moment, unsure, and a little surprised. There were only two voices, he now realized. One of them he recognized as Spock's—smooth, low, and calm as ever, but carrying nonetheless—and the other was a female voice. A female voice which sounded decidedly hysterical. And it seemed to be getting more so with every passing second.

In his growing bafflement, Pavel didn't register that the voice was getting closer until the doors abruptly slid open right in front of him and a girl burst out, almost causing him to topple over with the surprise. Pavel didn't know her, but he saw that she was wearing a cadet's uniform, was clutching a PADD, and was also in wild tears. She didn't quiet down or lift her head as she brushed past Pavel and started off back down the corridor, hurried and disconsolate. Pavel, now rubbernecking, finally tore his gaze away from the spectacle and looked back at the door the cadet had burst out of. There was Spock, standing in the doorway, also watching the retreating figure, one eyebrow halfway raised.

In that moment, all of Pavel's meager confidence shattered. His heart pounded and his whole body seemed to weaken. He half-consciously clutched his PADDs closer to his chest, as if that would somehow protect him, as he stared, wide-eyed, up at the (_great and terrible_) Vulcan who now stood before him.

And then suddenly, the Vulcan gaze was upon him as Spock turned his head to regard the bug-eyed little student now cowering at his feet. For a brief moment Spock considered Pavel with a tiny tilt of his head—a movement that somehow made him look predatory, a little like a tiger examining potential prey—and Pavel felt like he shrunk even more as the dark, towering figure seemed to loom over him.

Spock spoke. "Ah, Mr. Chekov." Pavel didn't even have enough of his wits about him to gulp. "Precisely on time."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Here is the next chapter. This one diverts from the humor theme; it is, on the whole, rather on the heavy side. This chapter is essentially chapter two, plus a 'bridge' to give transition into the next chapter. The next chapter will be returning to humor. I am far more uncertain about the quality of this chapter, but I hope you all enjoy regardless.

Thank you also to all who reviewed, favorited, and placed this story on their alerts. It is all greatly appreciated. Special thanks to those who reviewed—your comments make the writing process much easier.

**Disclaimer:** (Since I overlooked it on the last chapter—) I do not own any aspect of _Star Trek: 2009_ or any of the _Star Trek_ franchise, nor am I in any way affiliated with it. Everything belongs to Gene Roddenberry and (in this context) J.J. Abrams, and is property of Paramount.

* * *

**Chapter 2**

"_Then why don't you stop me?"_

"_Step away from me, Mr. Kirk."_

"_What is it like not to feel anger…or heartbreak…or the need to stop at nothing to avenge the death of the woman who gave birth to you?"_

"_Back away from me."_

"_You feel NOTHING! It must not even _compute_ for you! You NEVER loved her!"_

That primal roar would be seared into Pavel's memory if he lived to be one hundred and twenty. That _sound_…that guttural scream of anger, of grief, of sheer _rage_…

Kirk hadn't stood a shadow of a chance. It had all happened so quickly; _no one_ could have been prepared for that first blow. Vulcan strength and reflexes were not something to be trifled with to begin with, and Spock had been driven by the violent escape of so much utter fury that the sudden release of it had felt like a literal explosion. There was no way Kirk was ever going to win that one—Spock had slammed him around the bridge as easily as if he were tossing a ragdoll. Or maybe just a plain old punching bag. He'd all but sent Kirk's brains splattering all over the helm console. Kirk never even had the chance to get in a single hit.

Pavel didn't think there'd even been anything going through his head when it happened. The sight of Kirk pinned back onto the console, a viselike grip wrapped around his throat, struggling and letting out those weird little muted gagging/gasping sounds as he feebly attempted to loosen the crushing force around his neck…and Spock leaning over him, one arm extended, staring down at his victim with black, narrowed eyes, face twisted with hate and panting through his teeth in heavy, seething huffs, panting not from exertion, but from the pure blind rage…

Pavel's mind—certainly the coherent part of it anyway—had been utterly blank.

It wasn't until what seemed like hours later, when a firm voice from somewhere behind had said, "_Spock_!" and the young Vulcan's grip had eventually eased from Kirk's throat, that the rest of them realized that they'd just stood there, speechless, slack-jawed, and staring blankly like deer in the headlights as their acting captain/former professor had been choking their acting first officer/fellow classmate to death, right in front of them. And no one had had the presence of mind to do anything more than gawk.

It was surreal, in a way. Someone who had always been so controlled, so calm and even, so unreadable to the point where it actually did seem to others as if he had no emotions—for him to go off so spectacularly, so forcefully—it had just happened right in front of him, and Pavel still couldn't believe it.

He actually had to blink a few times to make sure this was all real. And then the reality sunk in, and with it the pain and the terror.

The ironic thing was, Spock seemed just as surprised by the outburst as the rest of them, perhaps even more so. The look on Spock's face as his father's reprimand had sounded across the bridge had been that of a man coming out of a stupor. Spock's eyes had suddenly cleared only for him to find himself staring down at the figure in front of him, blinking in shock at the sight of his own hand wrapped mercilessly around Kirk's throat, as if he'd no idea how it got there.

Then everything seemed to click, and Spock pulled his hand away as if the chokehold burned him and backed off from the gasping, hacking man lying helplessly over the console. Spock's face lost that hateful twist of primal fury, only for it to be replaced by confusion, then shock, and then a slow dawning profound grief. Spock paced backward briefly, aimless and dazed-looking, never once meeting the eyes of the startled, frightened bridge crew. He exchanged an unreadable look with his father from across the bridge, and then just as quickly turned his gaze away to stare blindly down at the floor—and the cold, aloof, formidable Vulcan looked for all the galaxy like a lost child.

It was heartbreaking.

And for some reason, it chilled Pavel to the bone. It was wrong.

By that time even Kirk's relieved wheezing had died down. The only sound on the entire bridge—the only one that mattered, anyway—was Spock's shaky, ragged breathing.

Finally he spoke, but his voice sounded wrong. It didn't sound anything like the strong, stern Vulcan it always did. "Doctor, I am no longer…fit for duty." He didn't look at McCoy; his voice was controlled and measured, but it did nothing to hide the strained, somewhat hoarse, and—no, Pavel couldn't think of it as choked—quality that pervaded it, subtly, but unable to be missed. And Spock was blinking. _It was all wrong, so wrong…_

Spock continued, still staring blankly ahead. "I hereby…relinquish my command based on the fact that I have been…emotionally compromised." Why did those two words feel like a knife? "Please note the time and date in the ship's log." And with that, Spock turned his back on them and headed for the turbolift. Never once did he look up or meet anyone's eyes.

It was a bad dream. It all felt like a horrible, horrible dream, and all Pavel could think was how badly he wanted to wake up. First the fleet of the Academy's graduating class had been lost, then Vulcan, and now Spock was breaking right in front of them…

Everything was so damn _wrong_.

And the worst part was, it was all Pavel's fault.

He should have been faster. He should have hurried; he should have beamed them out of there. He was literally a split second too late, and now she was gone, sucked into an endless, lifeless vacuum with the rest of her planet and everything on it. And no one could get her back.

He had failed. And now because of it, Spock had lost control and nearly killed a crewmember. And now, seeing the culmination of everything that had happened, it was all becoming too much. Pavel wanted to cry, wanted to disappear, wanted to fall asleep, or wake up to find that everything was all right again. To find that Pike was still with them, that all those cadets were returning home to Earth for their graduation, that Vulcan still existed and hadn't even had the tiniest of earthquakes, that everyone was still alive, that Spock was going calmly about his business of checking up on everyone and analyzing a curious little planetoid.

But none of those things were true, and the knowledge of that hit Pavel like a physical blow.

For a minute it was almost too much to take. There was a moment when it took all of Pavel's self-control not to break into painful, distraught tears. He might still have done so, but he found that he couldn't.

He was frozen. He couldn't speak, he couldn't move, and for a few moments he didn't even think he could breathe. As Spock retreated, rigid and stonily silent, an icy wave of chill seemed to wash over the bridge, and there was an unnerving moment when Pavel felt enveloped, swallowed in it.

If anyone else felt it, they gave no sign—they were all dealing with their own shock in their own ways—and truthfully, Pavel didn't have the faintest idea how he caught it. He had to quash the brief notion that flared up in his head for a split second before it was dispelled—that it was all directed at him. There was a wave of negativity radiating from the Vulcan, and it was one of the most frightening things Pavel had ever felt in his life. The grief was still there, yes, but there was a distinct hollow feeling, and guilt, and a sense of pain so profound it was almost physical.

Even so, Pavel might have thought it was just his own feelings if not for the next part—anger. Spock was usually so serene, so smooth, so unruffled, but now he radiated such a storm of rage, of hatred, of lust for vengeance, of the desire to just rip someone apart. It was horrible. Pavel wanted to shrink away from it.

It was terrifying, the way Spock had beat Kirk senseless with such ease, how he had come close, so close, to squeezing the life out of him completely…

…and now it had all disappeared. Not gone, no, certainly not gone—Pavel could tell that much. It was all submerged, bottled up, and stowed away in typical Spock fashion. The Vulcan once again had the reins of control, and he was gripping them tightly, reeling himself in strictly, mercilessly. All the malice and hurt were immediately quashed and shoved ruthlessly away into some tiny, obscure corner of Spock's mind, never to see the light of day again.

Utterly invisible.

It was, ironically, that ghostly sense that chilled Pavel even more.

And then the turbolift door slid shut behind Spock's rigid back, and it all vanished completely. No faint lingering trace of hostility, or sorrow, or quelled emotion. It was as if a door had indeed slammed shut—on whom, it was difficult to tell. It was so jarringly abrupt, and everything was suddenly just…empty.

He could almost hear the echo.

Pavel shivered.

* * *

They survived.

They destroyed Nero. They escaped the black hole. They even managed to rescue Pike. They had lost their warp core, so they were stuck limping back to Earth on mere impulse power, but it was okay.

They were all okay.

But it was, in many ways, a hollow victory. So much had been lost. Vulcan, the fleet, all those cadets… It was way too much.

Pavel had been in something of a daze for about a week following that horrible day. Shell-shocked, he supposed. Exhausted. Trying to deal with the grief.

He'd never really cried over any of it. He was probably too tired. Mercifully, at least his weariness and depression weren't debilitating, which was more than could be said for some of the other, more unfortunate crewmembers on board. Everyone understood, but the fact of the matter was that they really couldn't afford it. There was just too much turmoil, too much that demanded everyone's attention. They couldn't afford to have able-bodied crewmembers out of commission. The _Enterprise_, although still intact soundly enough, was seriously damaged, and they were in deep space with nothing but impulse engines to drag them home.

Those of them that were still lucky enough to have a home to go to, anyway.

Sarek and the other remaining members of the Vulcan High Council had effectively locked themselves away completely, it would seem, because none of the crew ever seemed to see any of them. Pavel couldn't help but be secretly glad for it. He didn't want to see those innocent, proud, noble people now completely bereft of everything, bereft of their very world. It was too wrong, and too sad.

Pavel went about his duties, but avoided Spock in particular as much as possible. He couldn't bring himself to face the bereaved Vulcan directly, not after Pavel had failed so badly, so devastatingly for Spock. There was still too much guilt, and fear. Pavel felt bad for feeling like that—he felt like he should be doing something, trying to make it better, but he didn't know how, and in any case he knew he couldn't. He figured he was better off just leaving the matter alone and letting wounds heal themselves.

Besides, there was too much work to be done to worry about emotional reconciliation. No one seemed to be able to spare a minute anymore, it seemed, and that went for Pavel as well. It was work, work, work, with breaks and naps when one could catch them. Short-staffed and damaged as they were, people were having to go out of their elements and try to assist in departments they knew nothing about. Between his regular duties Pavel had found himself helping out in engineering more than once, and often in science labs as well. He'd even lent a hand in sickbay on rare occasion. When he finally had the chance to crash at the end of each day, he was exhausted, and although a few hours of sleep a night kept him going, it certainly wasn't giving him any extra energy.

It was a slow two-and-a-half-week long haul back to Earth, and it was taking its toll on everyone else as well. Hikaru always looked like he was about to nod off at the helm. Pavel had never seen Uhura look anything less than formidable, but if her ponytail was a little more ragged and her face a little more drawn lately, it didn't escape his notice. It was even worse on the senior staff. The bags under McCoy's eyes deepened, if such a thing were possible. Spock went about doing anything that needed done, ceaselessly hard-working and behaving as he normally did, but there was a subtle haggardness about him if you looked, and his already-thin frame seemed to grow almost downright gaunt. He clearly hadn't been sleeping properly—no one had, but Spock seemed worse—and Pavel had the strong suspicion that the Vulcan hadn't been eating either. He also suspected that there was more to it than the simple fact that Spock hadn't had any time to. Kirk also pulled his share of the load, managing to stay relatively positive and holding everyone and everything together as best he could, but even he was clearly showing the exhaustion and strain.

It seemed to take forever, and there were times when Pavel almost thought they wouldn't make it. But they did. At long last they arrived back on Earth, and for Pavel, and most of the rest of the crew as well, the first thing he did was crash, hard. He did feel a lot better after three straight days of mostly sleeping, and although the horror of all that had happened was still painfully there, it was a little easier to deal with.

The next couple weeks were a swirled mix of joy and grief. A mass funeral and memorial service was held for the lost Starfleet crews. Pavel's graduation from the Academy seemed sadly empty without the vast majority of his fellow students, especially during the ceremonies dedicated to the honor and memory of the decimated senior class.

But the service for Vulcan was worse.

It was done in typical Vulcan fashion, stark and simple. There was no extravagance, no music. Admiral Barnett got up in front of everyone and delivered the standard speech—"it was a tragic thing that happened, you have our deepest sympathies, you will rebuild and there is still hope for the future," et cetera. The ceremony was conducted outdoors on a hillside overlooking the bay, with the whole of Starfleet Academy assembled, administrators, professors, students and all. Spock was, somewhat ironically _(or maybe it was horribly fitting), _the only Vulcan there.

And everyone seemed to be uncomfortably aware of the fact. Every single one of the grim, nervous, sometimes tear-stained faces that Pavel could discern in that huge sea of people seemed to be either unwittingly staring at the Vulcan, or making a point to keep their eyes respectfully, or sadly, or fearfully averted.

For his own part, Pavel hadn't wanted to look at Spock for most of the time. He didn't know what exactly he was afraid he might see—fury? Tears? Neither of them likely, but nonetheless Pavel hadn't felt brave enough to look more than a few times throughout the whole production. When he had, he'd seen what one would expect from the Vulcan—Spock stood quiet the entire time, utterly stone-faced, in his customary perfect posture with his hands behind his back, dressed in his starched, straight-black Starfleet uniform. Looking closer at his unreadable face, Pavel could still glimpse the chronic exhaustion that Spock hid so well (Pavel still had to wonder when was the last time Spock had slept or taken a meal), but the Vulcan was so pristine and _together_ that it was difficult to tell. Pavel probably would have missed it entirely if he hadn't known otherwise. Spock was immaculately groomed as always, hair sleek and perfectly straight, head high, shoulders squared, not a wrinkle to be seen anywhere on his outfit. He never gave the faintest sign of any emotion—no burning gaze, no jaw clenched in smothered anger, no eyes shiny with tears. He didn't even seem to bat an eyelash throughout the entire ceremony.

He was still.

Maybe a little too still, Pavel thought. The atmosphere of the whole thing was making him feel chilled, even though the air wasn't particularly cold.

That half an hour seemed to take three, but eventually it was over. The admirals stepped down, everyone was dismissed, and all the cadets began milling about as they went to make their way back down the hill. Pavel had never seen such a big group of so many young people so quiet. Almost no one spoke. They mostly just silently turned away and headed off without really looking at anything. A number of cadets, both human and non-human, were in tears, and their muted sobbing seemed to be the only thing anyone heard over the low murmurs of their companions trying to comfort them. Others had suspiciously wet-looking eyes and cheeks, but they mostly kept quiet and walked away without speaking to anyone.

Pavel was one of the last to leave. Kirk and McCoy had slipped off fairly soon after the affair had ended. Hikaru had stayed with Pavel as most of the other cadets had filed away, but as the crowd grew increasingly thinner, he had given Pavel's shoulder a squeeze, met Pavel's eyes with his own sympathetic, anxious gaze, and moved silently off. The hillside was largely abandoned, but as Pavel glanced back he saw that Spock was still there.

The Vulcan didn't appear to have moved, but he seemed farther away. Pavel didn't know whether he'd actually moved, or if he himself had just been unconsciously swept back a little bit by the dispersing tide of people. But in any case, there stood Spock, about seventy yards away, motionless and silent, his back turned. He looked like a shadowy statue.

Suddenly Pavel wasn't sure what to do. He felt another stab of guilt. A part of him actually wanted to go to Spock, see if he could make things better somehow. Spock just looked so distant. So _alone_.

But then, that was probably what he wanted, Pavel realized. No surprise. Spock was an extremely private person; he'd had to deal with so much these past weeks, and he'd had virtually no time to himself. Pavel didn't blame him in the least. Spock probably needed some time of total isolation, even if it was only for a few hours. It would be best that way.

And besides, Pavel didn't have the nerve.

Pavel looked around and saw that he wasn't alone on the hillside. There was Uhura, a way off to the side of him, staring after Spock's still form. When she turned to look at Pavel, her eyes were filled with unconcealed pleading, and there were tear tracks down her face. She looked torn, like she wanted to go after Spock, but wasn't sure if she should.

In a moment of a strange sort of boldness, Pavel went over to her. Their eyes met, and they didn't need to say anything. Uhura sent a last sad glance in Spock's direction, and then as if by wordless agreement they both turned and started off down the hill, not speaking or touching, but side by side.

As they walked, Pavel had to look back just once. Spock hadn't moved a muscle. In the few moments before Pavel turned back ahead, he was struck by how much the sharp black Starfleet Academy uniform suddenly looked like mourning garb. The last Pavel saw of Spock for the next two weeks was the back of that thin, black-clad, rigid figure standing alone and motionless on the crest of a hill, surrounded by thick cloying San Francisco fog and staring out over a grey sea.

Over the following days, however, things finally started to look up somewhat. Pavel couldn't help but be ecstatic for Kirk's commendation and promotion to captain, and if the fact in itself hadn't been enough to make him happy, the beaming joy and pride shining on Kirk's face as Barnett had pinned the medal on his chest would have.

The elation radiating from the new captain when he learned that he would be receiving command of the repaired _Enterprise_ had been even more overwhelming. Kirk had apparently restrained himself in front of the Admiral, but the moment he returned to the rest of them he'd lunged for the first unsuspecting victim he could reach, which by some ironic twist of fate happened to be McCoy, and seized the Doctor in an enormous bear hug that almost knocked the both of them over. (It was good that it didn't, because McCoy already cursed enough in surprise and indignation.) Kirk was being given his own starship—the flagship, no less—and now he got to pick much of his own crew. And, he'd informed his friends gleefully, they were all assigned to the _Enterprise_.

Kirk had insisted on dragging them all out to dinner on him that night. Pavel was admittedly a bit nervous about going into a bar—he still found all the people, drinking, partying, and noise pretty unnerving—but he knew he didn't have the heart to turn down his touchingly joy-giddy new commander, and it turned out that he actually did have fun. He'd had Hikaru by his side the whole night, which was comforting, and the celebratory mood was infectious. Even McCoy, by the end of the night, had abandoned his constant scowling and griping for smiles and laughter.

Although that could have been the brandy.

They'd had a few days to get their belongings together as the last of the repairs were made to the ship, and then Pavel found himself back at the _Enterprise_'s navigation console, minutes away from setting off on their first—real—mission. It was a big thing, Pavel knew. He was a little intimidated by it, he had to admit, but there was also a buoying sense of exhilaration that far outweighed the doubts. He rattled off his station's status with confidence as they prepared to ship out. As Kirk stepped onto the bridge (_his bridge_) and proudly surveyed his crew, Pavel found himself smiling right along with him.

Pavel was in a good mood as he continued to fiddle with his console, but then he heard the sound of the lift door sliding open. He glanced over, and then did a surprised double-take as none other than Spock appeared in the doorway.

"Permission to come aboard, Captain?" Spock asked politely.

Kirk was smiling a little as he answered. "Permission granted."

Spock stepped forward. He looked somewhat better, Pavel noticed. He seemed more rested, and he didn't look nearly so desolate, thank god.

Nevertheless, almost unthinkingly, Pavel still shrank away a little bit in his seat as the Vulcan strode past him.

"As you have yet to select a First Officer, respectfully, I would like to submit my candidacy," Spock said, stepping up to address Kirk, who had risen from his seat in the captain's chair. "Should you desire, I can provide character references."

Kirk looked up at the taller alien, meeting his eyes evenly. "It would be my honor, Commander," he replied. His tone was measured and professional, but there was no disguising the pride and happiness in his eyes.

Spock simply gave a single wordless nod and stepped away, heading for the science console.

Pavel realized then that his mouth was hanging slightly open. He quickly shut it. Okay, so this was an unexpected development. First officer? To Kirk? Pavel almost couldn't imagine it for a moment. It struck him then that this meant he'd be having a lot more interaction with the Vulcan. A _whole_ lot more.

He wasn't quite sure how to react. He still had a bit of a tender guilty spot where Spock was concerned, another area knew he was being paranoid, and a part of him just went, "_Oh, no_."

Pavel turned quickly back to his own console, telling himself to calm down. Kirk knew what he was doing. The _Enterprise_ was essentially just a shipful of college kids. They could use Spock. It was fine.

Later that night in the mess hall, Pavel would overhear McCoy rather hotly chewing Kirk out for hiring "Frosty the Vulcan" as his First Officer, but Pavel did his best not to listen.

At least Uhura seemed happy.

Nevertheless, as Kirk lowered himself back into his new chair and gave the order for Hikaru to engage the warp drive, two little corners of Pavel's mind, one uneasy and one cynical, couldn't help but comment in unison that this was going to be a _very_ interesting assignment.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** _Star Trek_ is not mine.

**A/N:** I have not updated for a while, my reasons being: I am not pleased with this chapter. However, all efforts at rectifying this have led to naught, so I am simply posting it, if for no other reason than to get it out of my way.

That encouraging statement made, thank you, once again, to all who have who have reviewed, etc. I love your input.

* * *

**Chapter 3**

For as much as the human race in general tended to complain about them, diplomatic missions really weren't that bad. True, they typically were not particularly fun. It wasn't that they were outright unpleasant; they just tended to be boring. Sometimes they were over and done with pretty quickly. That was always amply appreciated, but though it wasn't something you wanted to count on, it made the process a lot more bearable. Even though the majority of such missions tended to take a lot longer, hours, days, even weeks, they weren't usually otherwise terribly painful to deal with. Some races could be overly long-winded, or particular, or indecisive, but they were usually reasonable enough people. Besides, Pavel thought, it was always interesting to have the opportunity to observe another alien culture, and some of them could actually be quite sweet and friendly. So, although there were a number of other things he'd rather be doing with his time than standing around listening to the uninteresting chatter of a bunch of ambassadors and political figures, it was nothing Pavel couldn't handle. If nothing else, at the end of the talks, they usually served a bunch of free food. Also, Pavel had to admit silently to himself, even though he himself didn't really do anything, it was always neat in a way to be part of the crew that formed the first-ever partnership or agreement between the Federation and another race. It made Pavel feel kind of proud and important. Secretly, of course.

Sometimes, however, it just wasn't worth it.

Sometimes things just got ridiculous. This was one of those times.

It was another one of those first-time alliance missions. The Bahldorons weren't even joining the UFP—this really shouldn't be that difficult. However, Pavel had quickly realized that even forming a trade and peace agreement with these people was not exactly an easy task.

It might be easier if they could hear themselves think.

The Bahldorons were, at the least, what one could describe as boisterous. They were basically humanoid in build, but they had thick limbs, large, tough-looking skulls, ruddy skin, swarthy faces, and greasy-looking, tangled masses of long hair with beards and thick bushy eyebrows to match. They wore sturdy cloth tunics under vests of some thick sort of leather, plain-looking pants that stopped a little above their ankles, large leathery boots, and heavy ornaments of wrought metal and jewels on thick rings and chains. Right now the entire party of Bahldorons and Starfleet were assembled in one of the halls of some huge Bahldoron chieftain-house, a vast space of a stone floor covered by a high ceiling made of some sort of metal. The Bahldorons seemed to have a fondness for hunting, because they covered themselves and their blocky furniture in fur outerwear and adornments, and the walls were mounted with copious numbers of the taxidermy heads of various large and fierce-looking creatures that Pavel didn't recognize. There was a huge long table in the middle of the chamber, set about with chairs, but nobody was sitting at it.

They were all too busy yelling at each other.

It wasn't that the Bahldorons were unkind people. Pretty uncouth, by the Starfleet men's standards, but there'd been no assassination attempts, and no one had been killed. So far.

The Bahldorons, thankfully, didn't seem overly inclined to try to pound their guests into the ground, but that didn't mean that any of this was going well. Kirk, for one, looked like he either wanted to hit something or tear his hair out. Half the Bahldorons seemed to be in favor of treaty with the Federation while the other half seemed adamantly against it. From what Pavel had observed of them, it wasn't too difficult to win them over if you could impress them somehow. The trouble was, impressing them was easier said than done. It wasn't that the Bahldorons, even the opposed ones, were unwilling to listen, period; the challenge was getting them to quiet down and pay attention in the first place. If you could do that, you could prove you were worthy of their respect and they'd hear what you had to say. Simple—remarkably so—as that. But if you couldn't, they'd just ignore you altogether. The Bahldorons valued strength and shows of assertiveness. However, since they _were_ so accustomed to that typical pugnacious behavior, the Starfleet men were having a rather difficult time of making any sort of impression. In fact, they were having a hard time being heard at all.

Or rather, Kirk was. As enthusiastic about his job as Kirk was, Pavel had a strong feeling that the Captain was probably regretting having to take this mission. It wasn't at all uncommon to have some degree of division between the ranks, so to speak, within the population they were trying to win over. Smooth and charismatic as Kirk was, it was an inconvenience, but didn't usually prove to be too much of a problem. It did, however, require that people could actually _hear_ him. And in this instance, that was proving rather difficult. The Bahldorons were _loud_. They had big rough voices that carried to begin with, and when you had a room full of ninety or more yelling at each other, it was absolute cacophony.

Kirk, Spock, Pavel, and Hikaru were being completely ignored at the moment, and had been for the past five minutes since the arguing had broken out.

Kirk tried again for the eightieth time to get the Bahldorons' attention. "Excuse me—excuse me!" Nothing whatsoever. Kirk looked helplessly at Hikaru and Pavel, who stared back blankly, and then up at Spock. The big Vulcan was standing close behind Kirk's right shoulder, observing the entire scene with remarkable calm. He didn't return Kirk's glance, merely continued to watch the circus ensuing all around them, but Kirk apparently hadn't really been looking to him for help, because he too turned to face the crowd once more.

"Hey! HEY!"

The Bahldorons ignored him completely. The pair arguing right in front of the landing party was still stubbornly going at it.

"You're a fool, Gaahl, if you think to ally with these people! Federation, hah! Peace-loving—"

"It's an agreement, you idiot!" Gaahl hissed back at his opponent. "We are not assimilating ourselves to their ways; we are opening the doors for future trading and commerce!"

"A plot! They come to us with handsome words and snare us into a mere treaty, and then slowly soften us and make us just like them—turn us into complacent, small-voiced weaklings!" the other screeched scornfully, spittle flying. "See, Gaahl, they've already had you!"

Gaahl snarled something back in the Bahldor native language that sounded unmistakably like a curse, and launched himself at the other man. The two of them continued battering and yelling.

By this time Pavel was rather glad he had positioned himself close on Spock's other side. These people were fighting too close to him for comfort, and Pavel did not want to be standing even a couple feet separate from his own party, lest he manage to get caught in the crossfire. Spock on his left and Hikaru on his right should keep him pretty well shielded, he figured, but although most of the Bahldorons didn't really look like they were getting physical with each other, he was still on the lookout for any stray flying projectiles, like chairs or teeth.

Kirk, meanwhile, was trying a bit of a different tactic. This treaty was quite important to the Federation, and Kirk was clearly determined not to let them down. The Captain hated to accept defeat in any endeavor, and the explanation "key diplomatic mission failed because apparently we were too wimpy" probably was not going to go over to Starfleet any better than it would look in the _Enterprise_'s log. Especially this early on in her assignment. Therefore, Kirk was in all likelihood going to do whatever it took to reason with these people, even if it wasn't strictly diplomatic. If polite calls for attention weren't working—and they weren't; they were failing miserably—he'd try a more…_insistent_ approach. (Pavel suspected it was partially the comment about soft, complacent, small-voiced weaklings that did it.)

"Hey!" Kirk hollered. "All of you! Shut up a minute and listen!"

The Bahldorons ignored him and kept yelling.

Kirk shouted louder, cupping his hands to either side of his mouth. "Be quiet and hear what I have to say!"

The Bahldorons ignored him some more. Someone in the room bellowed what sounded like a war cry, and there was the sound of a heavy wooden crash.

"_Shut up_!"

Amidst the sea of belligerent aliens, Pavel saw someone fly onto the big table in the middle of the room, apparently flung by one of the opposing party, accompanied by a loud heavy thump and a guttural, infuriated screech.

It occurred to Pavel that this entire thing might be sort of comical if it wasn't so frustrating.

And a little scary.

Poor Kirk was screaming his lungs out. "PAY ATTENTION TO ME!"

Predictably, no one did. By now, three or so of the Bahldorons had formed a rather impressive dogpile on the table and currently just seemed to be hitting whomever else they could within the writhing mass. Pavel suspected it had less to do with opposing viewpoints than with some sort of personal insult that had been exchanged in the heat of the argument.

Kirk threw his hands into the air in exasperation and turned on his three companions. They all gazed back at him, Spock perfectly serene, Hikaru looking sympathetic, and Pavel apologetically helpless. Kirk stared pleadingly at them and gestured inarticulately at the crowd of squabbling men behind him. "Somebody," he said desperately, "make them _pay attention_."

Unlikely, Pavel thought unhappily. The way this seemed to be going, they could probably beam McCoy down with a bullhorn and it wouldn't help. Kirk's plea had been rhetorical, of course, but—

"_SILENCE!_" Spock roared.

Pavel swore the whole room shook. The floor certainly seemed to, because Pavel suddenly found himself sitting, wide-eyed and terribly startled, on the hard stone surface. _Damn_—he'd thought the Bahldorons were loud; apparently they were nothing compared to Spock when he wanted to be. The Vulcan had almost given Pavel a heart attack. Pavel decided that if thunderclaps could talk, that was probably fairly close to what they'd sound like.

And Pavel had been standing right next to him.

Ouch.

Realizing that he was still on the ground, Pavel quickly scrambled back to his feet, trying not to look too shaken and embarrassed. It was then, however, that he blinked and noticed something important.

The Bahldorons were quiet.

Pavel could've heard a pin drop. No one was yelling now. All the Bahldorons looked to have frozen where they stood (or wrestled, in those rare isolated cases), and they were all staring at Spock, looking a little surprised, but silent, respectful, and completely attentive.

Spock, meanwhile, was right back to his regular peaceful, proper self. He quietly surveyed the scene before him for a few seconds, and then, apparently satisfied, turned to Kirk, who was staring at the Vulcan with a slightly open jaw and eyes like saucers. "Proceed, Captain," Spock said politely.

At those words, Kirk abruptly clamped his mouth shut and seemed to try to compose himself. He quickly turned back toward the Bahldorons, blinked a few times, and cleared his throat. "Ah—right. Right!" He raised his voice to a more determined, authoritative level as he addressed the crowd. "Now, you are all familiar in some measure with the United Federation of Planets—"

As Kirk confidently took control of the situation once more, Pavel chanced to look over at Hikaru. His friend still looked a little startled, and he widened his eyes at Pavel when their gazes met, as if to say, _Yikes!_

Pavel returned the expression in silent agreement. They both snuck one last careful look up at Spock, who was standing with his hands folded behind his back and calmly watching the diplomatic proceedings. Pavel shivered a little to himself, trying to shake out the last of the fright, and then turned back around, settling his mind in for another few hours of listening to treaty talks.

A few hours later, everything was great. The Bahldorons had heard Kirk out and, although some of them were still reluctant, the treaty was set.

For now, the Bahldorons were setting up the meal. Servants went around the table setting out dishes, wine, and huge platters of various types of meats and other things that Pavel wasn't sure he recognized. The other Bahldorons were all mingling amongst themselves, and the mood, contrary to what it had been earlier, was definitely far more good-natured and jovial. It was still loud, but it was talking and raucous laughter, which, Pavel supposed, was greatly preferable to fighting.

Additionally, the Starfleet men seemed to have become quite popular with everyone. Kirk was getting a lot of attention and looked like he was rather enjoying himself as he carried on conversation with a group of Bahldorons. Hikaru was a way off, chatting with three or so, and even Pavel (not entirely willingly) seemed to have made himself a few new friends. Spock, however, seemed to have become a virtual celebrity. Bahldorons flocked to him, talking to him, laughing, and bellowing in what they probably assumed was an expression of…kindred spirits, or something. Spock didn't seem especially thrilled by the attention—then again, he never was—but he showed no discomfort either. In fact, he seemed perfectly at ease as he listened to comments and answered questions. It was a faintly ridiculous contrast: tall, slender, elegant, perfectly-groomed Spock with his calm, civilized demeanor, pale skin, and formal speech, surrounded by a gaggle of stocky, ruddy-skinned, scruffy, and somewhat-grubby men that shouted and laughed and acted a bit like ruffians—not to mention seemed to adore the Vulcan. Already Spock was unflinchingly enduring a constant barrage of hearty slaps on the back that were obviously well-meaning, but nevertheless would have sent any lesser man flying. But at least it looked like it was going relatively well.

Kirk, Spock, Hikaru, and Pavel spent the rest of the day there as they socialized and, in Kirk's case, discussed treaty terms. The meal was served around the long table and the Bahldorons became markedly festive, devouring platter after platter, draining wine barrel after wine barrel, in a matter of minutes. Pavel found the drink a little strong, but the food was pretty good, even if he didn't know what much of it was. He managed to get a chair across the table from Hikaru, who looked a little overwhelmed but seemed to be having fun. Kirk was clearly loving the entire affair; he talked and laughed and participated in everything. And, as usual, the Bahldorons seemed absolutely charmed by him. Spock was practically dragged into it, whether he liked it or not. The eager Bahldorons herded him over to the table, practically shoved him down into a chair, and never faltered in their incessant stream of chattering at the Vulcan as they clustered their own places about him and, unbidden, began loading his plate with huge piles of food that no normal person, much less slender, vegetarian Spock, would have been able to eat.

Pavel never did see how Spock managed to get out of that one, but overall, despite all the people and noise, the evening seemed to go quite well. Well, considering that they'd nearly had a full-blown brawl on their hands, and that Spock had once more managed to scare the living daylights out of Pavel. Yet again. Pavel just added it as one more item in his mental list of reasons not to get Spock mad at him.

Kirk, however, was beaming. Pavel had seen him pull Spock off to the side and exchange a few words with him, and judging by the grin on Kirk's face, Pavel had a feeling that Spock was, at the least, going to get special mention in this particular log entry. Although Pavel couldn't help but wonder how that was going to get worded. "Note special commendation for First Officer Spock for yelling loud enough to scare the bejeezus out of all of us."

All in all, everything turned out almost better than expected. Starfleet was going to be pleased with them, and the landing party actually seemed to have genuinely made a good impression. After witnessing firsthand how much of a task that could be, it seemed pretty noteworthy.

It was an hour or so before the gathering started to break up that Pavel saw Kirk standing off along a wall with Taagh, the Bahldoron chieftain. The two leaders each held a goblet of wine and were discussing the smaller treaty details as they talked. Eventually they both grinned, looking at each other, and firmly shook hands. Kirk returned to sipping his drink as Taagh looked out on the decidedly-absurd spectacle of his men mobbing Spock/inundating him with more food (was that someone trying to challenge him to an arm wrestling match?), saw that it was good, smiled, and turned back to Kirk. As he spoke, he gave the Captain a 'friendly' clap on the back that almost sent Kirk sprawling. Kirk barely managed to regain his footing at the last minute, somehow saving most of his drink as well, but Taagh, gazing happily at the smaller man, didn't even seem to notice the incident.

"I like your Vulcan friend!" he proclaimed, grinning widely. "He is strong!"


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** I do not own any part of _Star Trek _or _Star Trek: 2009_.

**A/N:** Hopefully this chapter is at least partially decent. Thank you, of course, to all who reviewed. If you have not, I shall not attempt to coerce you, but it would be greatly appreciated.

* * *

**Chapter 4**

"_Toss me."_

"_What__?"_

"_I cannot jump the distance; you'll have to toss me! …Uh-h-h! Don't tell the Elf?"_

—Gimli and Aragorn, _The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers_

* * *

Pavel trudged along through the trees, mouth open, trying to suck as much air into his lungs as he could. In front of him, Spock kept walking, but turned his head around and looked over his shoulder at Pavel. Pavel met the Vulcan's dark eyes for a split second, and then glanced away, resolving to try to pant a little quieter.

The two men were creeping through the vegetation on the edge of the woods. The forest was bordered by an open field, dotted with the occasional short shrub here and there. In Pavel's mind it would have been easier going if they had just taken to the grass, but Spock had insisted that they keep to the trees, where they would be at least somewhat concealed. Pavel had been in no mind to argue with the Commander, of course, and anyway he definitely had to admit that Spock's was probably the better plan. They were being chased. Well, there was no one rushing up on them at the moment, but they probably were being trailed. They'd managed to lose their pursuers for the moment, but Pavel knew it was a lot smarter to stay on the cautious side. Just because there was no one in the immediate vicinity—no one that they could see, anyway—didn't mean there was no one keeping an eye out from a distance.

It had started out as a routine science mission. The ecological aspects of Kolag II had never been properly documented before—they knew the planet was M-class, roughly 40% land masses and 60% water, with breathable air and an atmosphere similar to Earth's, but that was essentially it. As per Starfleet orders to check it out, Spock had led a science team down to the planet's surface to document soil, flora, life forms, et cetera. Harmless—that was what all the officials had said, anyway. To be fair, initially it seemed like it was. Pavel had beamed down with Spock, a security guard named Jenkins, and two other young scientists, Dalton and Jirskova. The planet had been, actually, pretty nice at first—the landscape was vast and rugged, but peaceful, with a beautiful mix of mountains, grasslands, and forests. The weather was clear, the air was pleasantly warm, the surroundings were attractive and idyllic, and aside from some ten-legged butterfly-esque creatures, there wasn't another soul in sight. The research was going well—they were actually kind of having fun as they worked, and even Spock seemed to be relaxing a tiny bit.

Dalton had requested that he and Jirskova, a pretty blonde ensign who was brand new to the ship, be permitted to stray off a bit to study what they could on the other side of that copse of trees off to the west of the main party. Since Dalton had about five years of experience under his belt, Spock had said yes, but only on the condition that Jenkins go with them, and that the smaller group maintain communicator contact with Spock and Pavel. The _Enterprise _was orbiting thousands of feet above, and if anything went drastically wrong, Dalton, Jirskova, and Jenkins were to contact the ship immediately. The conditions were readily agreed to, and with the promise to remain vigilant, the three headed off across the meadow and eventually disappeared into the trees.

Of course it was only _after _that decision had been made that they were to realize the tricorders weren't reading properly.

Spock and Pavel had been left alone for close to half an hour, quietly going about their business—and then, that quickly, as McCoy would say, everything had gone to shit. Pavel had seen Spock straighten suddenly and whip his head to face in the direction the others had gone, a second before he himself heard a high-pitched human scream. He instantly snapped into alert mode as Spock drew out his communicator in a flash and flipped it open. "Spock to Dalton; what is your status?" he said into the device, speaking quickly but calmly.

There had been no answer.

Spock had tried again. "Dalton, respond." Still nothing. "Spock to Jirskova. Jenkins. Science team, respond," he'd snapped into the communicator, louder and firmer, but to no avail. The scream rang out again, and Pavel barely had time to register before Spock was bolting off across the field, top speed. "Ensign, with me!" Spock had shouted back the command as he sprinted off, and Pavel immediately took off after him.

He'd had no hope of keeping pace with Spock's long legs and inhuman speed, but when he burst out of the trees on the far side of the grove, everything had been chaos. All his fellow crewmembers had been there, but they had guests. The aliens were basically humanoid, average-height and dark-skinned, with thick, ridged hides and wide bony crests on the crowns of the heads. Their faces were short, nearly flat, with two slanting slits for nostrils and large, black, vaguely reptilian-looking eyes. Their big mouths displayed yellowish, terrifyingly sharp teeth when they gaped wide to snarl at one of the away team. The aliens' hands had four wickedly-clawed digits, and though their legs weren't very long—Pavel doubted they could jump very well—they certainly seemed fast enough. Which, of course, was far too fast for comfort.

Especially when they were attacking Pavel's group. Pavel didn't know how they'd first shown up, but there were at least fifteen—maybe more—charging at the Starfleet crew, armed with long swords, spears, and wicked-looking pikes that the aliens seemed intent on driving through a human or Vulcan body. Dalton was trying to get his phaser aimed to defend himself, but looked like he was injured, and seemed overwhelmed by the Kolagians' numbers. Jenkins was down—dead or unconscious, it was hard to tell. To her credit, Jirskova was holding her own, but she was surrounded and screaming at Spock in rising alarm. Pavel raised his phaser, set on stun, and fired on one of the aliens. It hit its mark, and the creature fell back, dazed, but now Pavel had gotten the aliens' attention and some of them were charging him. Spock was leaping through the fray with astonishing speed, using fists and phaser to take down alien after alien, but more Kolagians were pouring out of the trees, and for every one that fell there was another to replace him. Jirskova, with Spock's help, had managed to elude immediate demise, but there were more of their foes on the way. She rushed over to help Dalton before he could fall, all the while screaming that they needed to get out of there.

Spock didn't respond to her. He delivered a swift, brutal punch to an alien's face, and as it fell, stunned, Spock whipped out his communicator and spoke urgently into it. "Mr. Scott, beam us out, now." They all continued to fight, waiting, but nothing happened. Spock repeated himself louder. "Mr. Scott, beam us out! …Mr. Scott! _Enterprise_, come in," the Vulcan snapped.

Finally, there was a crackle of static from the communicator. "Mr. Sp…k!" It was faint, but between the static and the distraction of firing at multiple advancing aliens, Pavel recognized it as Scotty's voice. There was no mistaking that accent. "I ca…arely hear ye! There's…nic interference…ansporter's ha…in' trouble; I…ly get a few…you at a time!"

"Understood, Mr. Scott," Spock replied, phaser firing rapidly with easy accuracy as he continued. "Get them out."

"A…ight, Mi…Spock. Pre…are t…beamed back."

"Transport myself last, Mr. Scott. Retrieve the rest of the team first."

"Bu…mmander—!"

"That is an _order_, Mr. Scott."

The Vulcan's even tone clearly left no room for argument, and Scotty apparently agreed. Though he didn't sound especially pleased about it. "…ery well, M…ock. E…gizin'."

As he dodged more aliens, Pavel saw the unmistakable swirl of the transporter appear around Dalton, Jenkins, and Jirskova as the three bodies began to fade from view. It didn't work right away; there was a moment when Pavel feared it wouldn't work at all, that the transporter would fail and they'd all be stuck here with no immediate means of rescue. The disintegrating forms flickered in and out of shape for a few moments, and then disappeared entirely. Pavel's sigh of relief was thwarted by the sharp blade that suddenly swung at his head. He ducked just in time to avoid getting the top half of his skull sliced off, raised his phaser, and stunned the alien, but he was tiring and wondered fearfully how long he could keep this up.

He did, however, feel another spark of hope as Scotty spoke to Spock again. "I…got 'em, M…parin'…eam ye u…"

Pavel felt his heart lurch as he realized the signal was breaking up even more. He'd managed to take down most of his attackers, but he knew he and Spock weren't out of the woods yet—especially since there were now only the two of them to fight the entirety of anything that came after them.

If Spock was uneasy about that particular matter, he gave no sign of it. He grabbed the shaft of the vicious pike that stabbed dangerously toward his throat, and the alien holding it struggled against him briefly before Vulcan strength prevailed and Spock shoved the Kolagian roughly away. He shot down the last two aliens in the immediate vicinity, and then addressed the communicator. "Ready for transport, Mr. Scott."

With the last of the Kolagians down, Pavel allowed himself to rest a bit, but he wasn't relaxed. A few hundred yards away, he could see another crowd of Kolagians swarming out of the trees, snarling in loud, grinding voices and charging straight for Pavel and Spock. They had to get out of there, now.

He heaved a sigh of relief as he felt the familiar tingle of the transporter effect as his atoms started to disassemble. They were saved—

Wait a minute. His surroundings materialized in front of him once again, but they were wrong. It wasn't the _Enterprise_'s transporter room; it was the planet's surface. His vision faded in and out for a few seconds, each time returning to Kolag, and Pavel felt a jolt of terror as he realized the transporter wasn't working. Finally the flickering ceased completely, leaving Pavel staring at the same scene he'd been staring at before, only this time the aliens were closer.

Pavel looked around quickly, terrified for a moment that he was alone before he saw that Spock was still there too. And though the Vulcan still seemed calm enough, he didn't look especially pleased. He opened his communicator with a sharp flick of his wrist and raised it to his lips again. "Mr. Scott, we are standing by. Beam us out immediately."

For a moment there was only silence, and then a violent screeching crackle of static came out of the device. Eventually fragments of Scott's voice came through, but it was so disjointed that it was difficult to make out.

"…ter Spock! I ca…porter's…etely out! I…ow when…back online! …osin' commu…tact…losin' y—!"

With a furious, grating static scream that jarred both of their ears, the communicator went dead. "Mr. Scott!" Spock called into it, almost yelling to be heard over the static that would be on the other end. "Spock to _Enterprise_; come in, _Enterprise_."

Nothing whatsoever.

Pavel didn't realize he'd frozen until Spock slapped the useless device shut, jammed it into its holder, and whirled on Pavel. "Ensign, run," he commanded simply. Pavel needed no second order and immediately bolted away in the other direction, flying across the field as fast as his legs would carry him with Spock hot on his heels.

He ran and ran, across the grass, into the trees, and through the forest. Spock had overtaken him in a matter of moments and could have easily outdistanced Pavel entirely, but thankfully he more or less kept pace with Pavel and never ran farther than about twenty feet ahead. Pavel could still hear the shouting and sounds of pursuit behind them.

The adrenaline rush was keeping Pavel going longer than he normally would have been able to at that pace, but the going wasn't easy. The forest floor was covered with leaves, which made it slippery, especially whenever the ground sloped downhill. Pavel slid more than once, and once would have fallen entirely had Spock not grabbed his arm in a viselike grip that constricted almost-painfully tight and nearly yanked Pavel's arm from its socket, hauled the ensign back to his feet, and ran on without looking back or breaking pace. The ground was littered with rocks and fallen tree limbs that made for pretty bad tripping hazards, and the close-knit maze of tree trunks and branches slowed Pavel down when he had to swerve to avoid them.

As he stumbled along, however, his communicator fell. Pavel's steps faltered. Should he go back for it? He was slowing down when Spock said, "Leave it." One glance behind him at their pursuers convinced Pavel that that was a very good idea. He kept running. Despite the dread of the Kolagians, however, Pavel was running out of steam. How long had they been running now? It felt like hours, and the stabbing cramp in Pavel's right side was not helping matters.

Pavel didn't know how long he and Spock ran, but eventually the Kolagians had begun to tire and gradually dropped back (helped along by a few accurate shots from Spock's phaser). Pavel wasn't even sure what was going on anymore, he was so exhausted, but he managed to coerce his legs to carry him a little further. He'd followed Spock as the Vulcan did some fancy weaving through their surroundings, and eventually, before he knew it, the Kolagians were nowhere in sight. Then, finally, mercifully, Spock had slowed to a walk.

And that was essentially how Pavel found himself trudging through the thin woods on the edge of a field, trailing breathlessly along behind his first officer. He wished Spock would stop; Pavel really wanted to lie down. They made a sorry pair, he thought, out of contact with their ship and stranded here on this alien world. The day/night cycles here were approximately forty-eight hours, which meant about twenty-four of those were daylight. The scientists had beamed down only a few hours after the sun had risen on the planet that morning, and from what Pavel could tell, it was now mid-afternoon. The original mission was only supposed to take a couple hours. He and Spock should have been back on the _Enterprise_ probably fifteen hours earlier. No doubt their shipmates would be working hard to find a solution to the transporter problem, but unfortunately for the two remaining members of the landing party, for the time being it was still out of commission, leaving Spock and Pavel both tired, hungry, and wandering around on an unfamiliar planet. And though there was no telling how Spock was holding up ache-wise after hours and hours of walking, Pavel's feet hurt. His stomach rumbled every so often, getting him a half-glance from the hyper-alert Vulcan in front of him, his head reeled, and his feet were throbbing painfully in his boots.

Sometimes with the combination of it all Pavel thought he might pass out.

He knew it was wiser to keep going, though. If the Kolagians were tracking them, which Spock seemed to suspect, they'd be better off to keep moving, even if it was slowly, rather than just sit their little selves down somewhere and wait for the aliens to catch up. Truthfully, at the moment Pavel would have been content to do just that, but he knew he shouldn't—Spock was already sacrificing speed and efficiency to accommodate the pathetic little human weakling that he was stuck with; it wouldn't be fair for Pavel just to stop altogether.

Although that didn't stop him from mentally cursing ridiculous Vulcan endurance every once in a while.

A wild thought did flare up in Pavel's head for a split second, born of exhaustion and desperation, but he immediately dismissed the notion of asking Spock to carry him as a Very Bad Idea.

Still, Pavel's energy was all but spent, not to mention the mental strain from the stress of being hunted, essentially lost, and stranded with no way of knowing when they'd be rescued.

Just as Pavel was thinking how much he'd like to collapse in the grass and leaves and not get up again, Spock glanced back at him again. Pavel blinked wearily up at him, thinking he was going to speak, but he didn't. Instead, he just met Pavel's eyes, gave him a single small nod, and turned back ahead.

Pavel blinked again. No doubt Spock knew how weakened and fatigued Pavel was. He could see how much Pavel wanted to slump to the ground and call it quits, but Spock hadn't commented on that. He'd stayed silent, his face serious and unreadable, but he'd given Pavel that nod as if to acknowledge that Pavel was still with him. It felt like approval of the fact that the ensign hadn't collapsed, that he'd kept going without voicing a complaint.

It felt like encouragement.

Small as the gesture was, it turned out it was all Pavel needed. He mentally pulled himself together, steeled himself, and walked a little straighter as he followed after the tall blue-and-black form in front of him. Pavel was still exhausted, none of that had changed, but he was tough. He'd made it this far; he could keep going, at least for a while. Besides, even Spock had to stop sometime, didn't he?

Pavel really hoped so.

It was maybe half an hour later that Spock actually did stop. Only it wasn't a relaxed sort of stop—it was a freeze. Pavel himself was panting again, but at a sharp look from Spock, he clamped his mouth shut. Spock was stock-still, body straight, facing back the way they'd come. Listening. The elegant, tapering points on the tops of his ears, coupled with his alert posture, almost made it look like his ears were pricked, like a cat's. Pavel couldn't hear anything, but Spock's senses were about a hundred times sharper than his own were. As he watched the Vulcan's dark eyes dart around through the dim woods behind them, Pavel felt a growing sense of unease as he became more and more convinced that something was wrong.

That unease increased a million fold when Spock spoke, voice low and quick and steady, but not looking away from the gloom of the trees behind them. "Ensign, come with me." With that, Spock turned and continued their original path, not quite at a run, but with more speed and subtle urgency. "Quickly."

Pavel followed, feeling his own heart rate pick up. He wanted to ask what the matter was, but when Spock ordered him in no uncertain terms to be quiet when a dry branch snapped loudly under Pavel's foot, he thought better of it.

They went on like that for a few minutes, Pavel mentally wincing every time his steps kicked a twig or rustled the leaves—which was pretty much every second (honestly, how _did _Spock move through the leaf litter so quietly?). But it was then that he heard it: there was a much bigger crashing of leaves coming faintly from behind them, the kind that came unmistakably from the heavy steps of many running feet. It was almost simultaneously that Spock told Pavel to run, fast.

And Pavel did. He abandoned all attempts at stealth and went fleeing away through the trees, not caring how much noise he made. Spock stayed behind, and Pavel could hear the phaser shots that accompanied grinding shouts of surprise and anger, followed by the heavy clashing thumps of large bodies falling onto the dry leaves, but the seventeen-year-old didn't dare to look back. He could only hope that none of those thumps was Spock's body hitting the ground.

Pavel shoved that thought away immediately. He didn't want to think about that.

He didn't know where Spock wanted him to go, so he just kept running straight. The stitch in his side had returned, and he was breathing in harsh, ragged gasps. Oh god, he couldn't keep doing this…

The sounds of pursuit were still there, and Pavel couldn't tell if they were closer or fainter. His legs seemed to have gone numb. He felt a jolt of sheer panic as he heard the rushing sound of a sudden burst of running footsteps coming up directly behind him, terrifyingly fast, but when Spock's form flew by him, he realized he wasn't going to die. Not right away, at least.

But they were in serious trouble, which Pavel realized as Spock suddenly veered sharply to the left. Pavel followed as best he could, and then suddenly noticed what had caused the Vulcan to change course so abruptly.

No, god, they didn't need this.

More Kolagians. Not just from behind, but this time from the side. They were still some distance off, at least, but Pavel could spot another army (at least it seemed like an army) of them charging through the forest on the right of Spock and Pavel's original path. Spock, having swerved off, was now heading for the open area that lay beyond the edge of the woods. Pavel knew the Vulcan wouldn't willingly choose to go out into open space with so many people after them, but with the tide of advancing aliens, they had no choice.

Spock was leaping through the forest practically backwards with surprising speed and agility, releasing a steady horizontal rain of phaser fire as he went. As he himself ran, Pavel couldn't suppress an impulsive jolt of anger—what did these people have against them so badly, anyway? He didn't have an answer, but the spurt of irritation drove him on until he finally burst out of the trees and into the grassy field. His steps faltered and he looked around wildly. Where was he supposed to go from here? He knew he and Spock couldn't stay out in open space for long; it would make them too easy for the Kolagians to get at. That eliminated his running left or right; there was nothing but strips of grassland. He sure as hell couldn't go backwards, though the forest would offer the best protection.

Pavel had just made up his mind to run straight when Spock dashed out of the trees behind. Pavel noted with some relief that Spock must have taken out a good many of the Kolagians chasing him, but Pavel also knew that it was only a matter of time—not a lot of time, either—before the others caught up. Spock was wasting no time as he tore across the field after Pavel. The Vulcan whirled around to face back toward the trees and didn't look at Pavel as he spoke. "Ensign, run."

Pavel did, but he was really beginning to hate hearing those words.

Here came the aliens. They sent up a collective battle cry as they charged out of the woods, weapons raised, heading straight for the landing party. Pavel noticed with a jolt that some of them had bows. They must have kept them down while they were chasing through the forest, but out here in the open air, Spock and Pavel were fair game for arrows.

But then, unbelievably, things got even worse. Pavel skidded to a stop in his tracks, a stab of pure dread shooting through his gut. _Oh, no._ It wasn't a straight run up ahead. He hadn't noticed it before in his wildly hasty, preoccupied flight, but now, not thirty feet in front of him, the grassy ground cracked and yawned open to reveal a gaping chasm, at least fifteen feet across. Stumbling forward, Pavel could see the wild torrent of water that ran through the base of it at a terrifying drop of forty feet or so from the edge of the ravine. _Shit, shit, shit…_ There was no way Pavel could jump that. He drew back from the edge, fighting down a wave of vertigo, and spun back around to see Spock facing a horde of angry Kolagians that were running at him head-on with wicked blades and arrows. _Shit! _The Vulcan was picking them off with his phaser, focusing on the archers who had a longer range, but the aliens were closing fast. Highly skilled and dangerous as Spock was, Pavel didn't think his chances of taking on that whole battalion single-handedly were very good.

In a panic, Pavel drew his weapon and fired on the advancing throng of enemies, but the arrows were flying through the air pretty abundantly now, and he didn't know how long he could dodge them. Spock was now engaged in close combat with the Kolagians, and though he was holding his own well enough for the moment, it was only a matter of time before both he and Pavel would be overwhelmed by the Kolagians' sheer numbers. In fact, it was a miracle they'd survived this far. They needed to escape, _now_.

Somehow, Spock managed to take down a fair number of the aliens in the front of the pack, buying himself enough time to run toward Pavel. "Ensign, go!" he shouted, twisting to avoid an arrow.

"Commander, ze drop!" Pavel yelled back helplessly, ducking the spear that was thrown in his direction. Spock saw the chasm, but didn't react other than to spin back around and release another barrage of fire into the advancing crowd. "Ensign Chekov, you need to get out, _now_!" Spock barked severely.

Pavel's own voice was high-pitched with sheer terror as he answered, but he was too panicked to care. "Commander, I cannot jump ze chasm!" The two of them were backed up almost to the edge, and the arrows were raining down with increasing density. Oh god, they couldn't escape, they were both going to die…

"Hold your fire, Ensign!" Spock shouted sharply. The harshness in his voice scared Pavel, but he did as he was told, too frightened to think of questioning the order. He couldn't move. His feet were rooted to the spot, his whole body frozen, his wide, terrified eyes fixed on the mob of creatures swarming towards him and closing fast. They would be on them in a matter of seconds. Spock threw himself in front of Pavel so that they were facing each other; for a second Pavel thought Spock was trying to shield him, trying to give him a few more seconds to live until the inevitable end, but then Pavel was dimly, bewilderedly aware of strong arms wrapping around him—

And then Spock threw him.

Spock bodily picked him up and _threw _him across the chasm. Pavel was so utterly surprised that he couldn't even draw the breath to scream as he was launched upward and flew through the air, suspended sickeningly in empty space for what seemed like forever over the gaping abyss that soared, open-mouthed and hungry, beneath him. He thought the hole loomed horrifyingly close, yet dizzyingly far away, and then he was falling…

He was almost stunned to feel what little breath he had knocked out of him completely as his body smashed through some leaves, stalks, and twigs, and hit the ground gracelessly with a resounding thud. He felt himself tumbling clumsily for a few seconds before he rolled to a slow stop and found himself staring up at the cheery blue sky, totally dazed.

When he finally got some of his wind back and his head stopped spinning enough for him to look around, Pavel realized he was, amazingly, on the other side of the gorge. He was lying flat on his back in the green grass of an upward-sloping embankment, head toward the chasm and feet pointing downward away from it, surrounded by a fairly thick if now-somewhat-battered coppice of shrubs and tall reeds.

And then it hit him—he was safe.

He actually wasn't dead! He'd thought for sure he was inescapably dead, but he was alive; here he was, and he was alive, so comfortingly alive…

It had to happen sometime. Pavel was so unbelievably exhausted; he'd been running for his life all day; his whole body hurt; he'd been so scared and so certain he was going to die; getting tossed over the treacherous chasm had frightened him so much; but now it was all over, and he was safe, and he could lie down, and he was so relieved, so incredibly relieved…

As said, it had to happen sometime. And it did. Pavel cracked.

The whole day had been way too much of a physically taxing emotional rollercoaster, and that terrifying toss had been the last straw. And now that he was safe, Pavel couldn't take it anymore. For a few seconds he didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and for a moment he was caught somewhere between the two, but then he was giggling, giggling hysterically. They were totally insane, wet giggles, and for a little bit he couldn't seem to stop. Pavel never moved from his position of lying stretched on his back like a squashed spider, but eventually he came down from his little high, and then reality seemed to slam in like a big, fat Aultarian wrecking ball.

He didn't realize he'd almost forgotten about Spock until there was another brief bout of leafy crashing and Spock himself came diving through the greenery less than five feet to Pavel's right. Pavel noticed that he could still hear the angry, ferocious sounds of the fight from the other side of the ravine as the Vulcan curled himself into a forward roll and somersaulted a couple times as he hit the ground. Spock came to a smooth stop a short way off and rolled onto his stomach, pressing his long body to the ground. A steady volley of Kolagian arrows flew by harmlessly overhead as Spock wiggled forward on his belly, using his arms and elbows to drag himself until he'd crawled up so that he was about even with Pavel. The Vulcan scooted himself forward another few inches, keeping low to the ground, and peered furtively through the undergrowth, presumably keeping an eye on the Kolagians.

Spock didn't break his observation of the noisy aliens across the gorge, but he addressed Pavel in his typical calm, businesslike voice. "The Kolagians will not follow us. Provided we keep ourselves relatively concealed within this brush, they will likely move off within the hour, after which we may disclose ourselves and seek better asylum until the _Enterprise_ is capable of initiating our rescue. The ionic interference within this solar system is likely a fairly transient incidence. It is probable that Mr. Scott will be able to recalibrate the sensors and install the repairs needed to rectify the transporter failure within a reasonably brief amount of time, thus permitting the two of us to be back aboard the _Enterprise_ by the planet's nightfall. Mr. Chekov," Spock said suddenly, turning to look at Pavel with an expression of complete and utter bewilderment, "Why are you crying?"


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: **I do not own any aspect of _Star Trek_ or _Star Trek: 2009_. All aforementioned and associated content is property of Gene Roddenberry, J.J. Abrams, and Paramount.

**A/N:** I am not totally pleased with this one, but in any case, here it is. I also apologize for any technical errors I may have unintentionally made with this—I love _Star Trek_, but I do not pretend to possess anything remotely approaching infallible knowledge of the technical and mechanical workings of the ship.

Next chapter (whenever I may happen to get it written): one time Pavel did not find Spock so frightening.

As always, my greatest gratitude to all who reviewed, and also to those who favorited and added this to their alerts.

* * *

**Chapter 5**

The ship was huge. Not nearly as big as the _Narada_ had been, of course, and probably not even as big as the _Enterprise_, but Pavel decided that the technical measurements didn't really matter. As long as it was attacking you and doing a decent job of it, that automatically made it seem too big. No one had been expecting the Klingon battle cruiser to show up. The _Enterprise_ was in deep space in a pretty remote sector of the quadrant, true, but it was still Federation territory. Klingons definitely hadn't been what they were watching for, though it wasn't unheard of for Klingons to trespass in Federation space. It certainly wasn't appreciated, though.

Especially since the Klingons attacked on sight. Pavel had barely even gotten the words out that the battle cruiser was de-cloaking off their starboard bow when there was a spectacular _KRA-KOOM!_ sound and the ship rocked so violently that it sent half the bridge crew spilling out of their seats. Immediately klaxons started blaring as Spock steadied himself, having been one of the ones granted with handholds and superior balance so as not to have gone tumbling to the floor, and called clearly, "A direct hit on our starboard side, Captain."

Kirk, who by now was looking decidedly irritated—and understandably so—by the sudden attack on his precious ship, didn't reply to his First and only stabbed the ship-wide comm. button on the arm of his chair with his right index finger. "Red alert. All crewmembers to battle stations," he ordered, immediately adopting his command voice. "Shields up," he added unnecessarily to Hikaru.

"Shields up, Captain; at sixty percent," the helmsman replied promptly. His voice remained steady, but the anxiousness in his tone wasn't disguised. "That was a bad hit, sir. We can't take many more like that."

If Kirk was going to reply, he was cut off by another booming slam as the ship bucked again. Less people fell over this time, being somewhat more prepared for it, but Hikaru's statement created more than enough unease by itself. "Shields dropping dangerously low, Captain."

"Uhura, hail them," Kirk said.

"I'm trying, Captain," Uhura replied, bent studiously over her console with her fingertips to the earpiece she was wearing. "They won't respond," she said, sounding faintly annoyed.

"Mr. Sulu, prepare to return fire on my signal."

"Aye, Captain," Hikaru replied promptly, straightening a little more in his seat. He pushed a few buttons, then sat back a bit. "Phasers locked."

"Fire," Kirk ordered, staring at the target on the view screen as if he'd shoot phasers out of his eyes at it himself if he could.

Hikaru fired. Pavel saw the other ship sway as the blasts hit home, but before Hikaru even managed to finish his statement of the other ship's condition, the _Enterprise _lurched once more. This time, though, the hollow metallic boom was accompanied by a disturbing sound of dying circuitry, and then everything went dark on the bridge.

There were a few moments of eerie total silence before Pavel heard a computerized noise followed by Kirk's irritated voice. "Bridge to engineering; Mr. Scott, what happened?"

"Shields down, Captain," Hikaru interrupted.

"Instruments report six people being beamed onto ze ship, sir," Pavel added, glancing at his console.

Kirk hissed a low curse and spoke louder into the comm. unit. "Mr. Scott, what happened?"

Scotty's voice came through. "They hit our engines, Captain." The Scotsman sounded rueful. "We're dead in space for the moment. I can fix it, but it'll probably take a couple hours. No shields either, for the time being."

"Six more intruders, Keptin. And again," Pavel piped up anxiously.

"What happened to all the lights?" Kirk asked, ignoring Pavel for the moment.

"Ah-h…" Scotty made an exasperated noise, but it sounded more distressed than irritated. There was a pause during which they could hear some unintelligible muttering, presumably as Scotty checked some things, and then the voice returned with a sigh. "Sorry, Captain, they whacked out a lot of the other ship functions as well. Upper decks have no overhead lightin'; doors are jammed, as well as all the turbolifts. And, uh…if anyone cares, the replicators are offline," Scotty reported sheepishly.

"Shit," Kirk muttered. "What about the lower decks?"

"Lightin's out in part of it, Captain, mostly just in the main corridors, and doors are jammed on a few of those decks as well. Other than that, seems fine, but we've had no contact with anyone." Scotty seemed to hesitate. "Ye don't imagine somethin's happened to 'em, do ye?"

"I don't know, Mr. Scott," Kirk ground out, clearly annoyed with the situation. "I'll see if I can find anything out. In the meantime, get those shields back up, and watch out. Chekov reports we've got quite a few intruders down there."

"From the other ship?" Scott sounded surprised.

"_Yes_, Mr. Scott," Kirk snapped.

"Sorry, sir," Scott said quickly. "I'll go do that, sir. Shields should have at least partial power back within a few minutes."

"Very good, Scotty," the Captain said, running a hand over his forehead and sounding much gentler this time. "Keep up the good work."

"Aye, Captain," Scotty said meekly. The transmission ended.

Kirk sat up in his seat and stared blankly out at the bridge crew, who were only visible by the soft glow of the consoles. "Okay. Mr. Chekov, status of intruders?"

"About sirty-six of zem, Keptin," Pavel reported unhappily. "All in ze warious lower decks."

As if on cue, the comm. beside Kirk's arm whistled. "Science lab six to bridge," came a low, hurried voice. "There are Klingons down here, holding us hostage. They haven't hurt anyone yet, but—" Abruptly the transmission went dead.

Now, Kirk couldn't sit still. He sprang up, stalked over to the turbolift door, and stood in front of it expectantly. But it was just as Scotty had said. The lifts weren't working, and when Kirk walked up to it, nothing happened. He swore in irritation, pounding his hand on it, and then kicking at it in desperation. He soon gave up, however, and with a muttered, "_Fuck_," he turned to face the bridge crew, slumping against the wall. "We need to do something. We _have_ to get down there."

And with that, they were set. Hikaru pointed out tentatively that, of course, the lifts didn't work, but the determined, angry light in Kirk's eyes told everyone that he wasn't going to take 'no' for an answer. The Captain was fiercely protective of his ship, and even more protective of his crew. And now his crew was being held hostage _inside_ his own ship, while he himself was equally trapped on the bridge, cut off from defending his people by a stupid stalled turbolift system. The notion evidently made Kirk furious, feeling helpless and imprisoned like this. They couldn't even fire on the enemy ship, not while their own shields were down. But it was obvious to all that the Captain was going to escape and rescue his people, or go mad trying.

Thankfully, the latter hadn't ended up having to happen. There were a few minutes when Kirk was storming about the bridge in a flurry of growing frustration, snapping at everyone. Luckily, though, they were all saved once again by Vulcan strength and ingenuity. It took some effort, but Spock managed to force the lift doors open manually, wrenching the twin sliding panels apart and pushing them back into the wall to expose the chamber within. From there, it wouldn't be too difficult a task to open the hatch at the top and climb through the shaft to reach the Jeffries tubes, and then the main corridors. The fact that they were no longer completely trapped served as a boost of encouragement to the bridge crew, and Kirk almost looked like he could have kissed his first officer right then and there.

He refrained, though, much to Spock's visible relief.

So now they had a plan—most of them were taking phasers and leaving the bridge. Kirk, Spock, and Pavel were among the ones who would crawl out of the lift and try to make their way through the rest of the ship. They would be hunting down the Klingons. Sulu, Uhura, and another officer whom Pavel didn't know were to stay on the bridge. They couldn't leave the helm and communications unattended, especially if Scotty managed to get the engines and other functions working again, and if any Klingons somehow managed to make it up to the bridge, there needed to be at least a few people there to defend it.

With that plan in place, Pavel followed his superiors into the turbolift, accepted their help in hoisting himself through the hatch on the ceiling, and began to climb.

There were scattered entrances to the Jeffries tubes placed for repair purposes at intervals along the inside of the shaft. The tube system snaked all throughout the interior of the ship, allowing one to travel to virtually anywhere onboard, provided one knew how to navigate the complex maze of tunnels. It seemed like rather slow going—slower than they would have liked, certainly—getting from the upper decks all the way down to the lower decks. Everyone had to crawl on their hands and knees for most of the way and climb down ladders for the rest. It was pretty close quarters too, with considerably limited visibility—a few hands got stepped on, and heads collided with rear ends more than once. Kirk had contacted Scotty again to inform the Chief Engineer of what they were doing, and they'd learned that, although lights and lift systems would have to wait for the time being, shields were restored—not fully, but enough that at least they wouldn't blow up immediately if the Klingons fired on them again. Finally, Scotty had bid the group a sincere "good luck", and Kirk closed the communicator.

* * *

Before they reached the lowermost portion of the ship, they had all been assigned tasks. Kirk and Spock had continued on down to the lower decks to head the main attack, accompanied by another ensign and a couple of lieutenants. They would confront the main group of Klingons and try to rescue the hostages. Since the crew would be at battle stations and therefore would be more concentrated in a lesser number of areas, the rescue party would target one of those areas first, and hopefully free enough people in one go to take on the rest of the Klingon force. Pavel and Ensign Altoro had been ordered to remain a few decks above and scout out the corridors. A few of the Klingons had evidently been beamed into those decks directly, and were mostly likely patrolling them, looking either to take out or capture any stray crewmembers that still happened to be wandering around in the corridors. Pavel and Altoro would be responsible for dealing with those intruders.

Altoro had offered to take one deck, and Pavel had taken the deck below. Now, twenty minutes (he estimated, give or take) later, as he wandered through the dark, eerily silent corridors, Pavel found himself wishing they hadn't had to split up. He didn't like this one bit. He didn't have an especial phobia of the dark, no more than most people at least, and thanks to the muted glow of various button panels in the walls it wasn't dark to the point that he couldn't see at all, but sneaking around in an unlit, empty corridor hunting for Klingons that could be lurking just around the corner waiting to jump out and snap his scrawny neck was definitely not Pavel's idea of a pleasant stroll. He wasn't unarmed, but he didn't exactly trust his little hand phaser to defend him against Klingon disruptors.

As if to compound his nervousness, Pavel suddenly heard the sound of footsteps. Immediately he pulled back and pressed himself against the wall. He was at an intersection; he could distinctly hear heavy footsteps coming down the adjacent corridor, heading toward him. Pavel couldn't tell for certain which direction they were coming from, and he didn't want to poke his head out and look—Klingons had better night vision than he did, and Pavel was not eager to go blundering out into the other corridor, blindly trying to pinpoint his adversary's position, only to be spotted and get his own head blasted off. But the footsteps were getting closer every second.

Pavel shut his eyes for a moment, trying to judge which direction to go, and then sprang out into the open, blindly hoping that he was right. As it turned out, he was. At once he caught sight of a big, bulky two-legged figure coming down the middle of the corridor less than twenty feet away. The Klingon let out a shout, but Pavel wasted no time and fired immediately. The bright blast of light hit the figure square in the chest before it could react, and the shout was cut short as the dark shape collapsed to the floor with an audible thump.

It didn't get up again.

Still, Pavel didn't breathe a sigh of relief. If there were other Klingons who had heard that shout, they could come running any second. Pavel spent a good twenty seconds standing frozen in the middle of the corridor, listening for any sounds of approaching trouble, but there was nothing. Only the low hum of the ship around him and the whispering, barely-audible puff of his own quiet breathing.

He carried on as the minutes went by, keeping an ear out. It was a big deck and he had no way of knowing exactly how many Klingons were in here. No more than three or four, Pavel guessed—he'd already taken one down, so that was progress. Unless the other Klingons came across the body, deduced that something was up, and came after him together. Also, the phaser he was using hadn't been fully charged, and now it was dangerously low on power. He'd have to watch it, make sure every shot counted. The last thing he needed was to be caught defenseless at the mercy, or rather lack thereof, of a bunch of angry Klingons.

He wondered with a pang of anxiety how the others were doing.

Pavel was wandering down another passageway when suddenly he caught sight of another person rounding the corner toward him. Another Klingon. _Shit!_ He quickly ducked back into the shallow cut-out section of the wall where one of the doors opened out into the corridor, and pressed himself to the wall. He winced, waiting for the shout of alarm and running footsteps, but they never came. Pavel held his breath, listening, but miraculously, the Klingon didn't seem to have seen him. Thirty seconds seemed to pass with agonizing slowness as Pavel waited in the shadows behind the small corner. When the huge Klingon shape came into view beside him, Pavel aimed his phaser and pulled the trigger. There was a soft sizzling noise as the bolt hit its target in the throat, and the Klingon dropped without a sound, hitting the floor facedown less than five feet away from Pavel.

As Pavel stepped from his hiding place, trying to slow his pounding heart, he stared down at the prone figure. It didn't move. He'd killed it at point-blank range. Pavel pushed down a wave of revulsion, held his weapon a little tighter, sidled carefully around the hulking corpse, and walked on.

* * *

How much time had gone by? An hour? Pavel didn't know. He'd lost track long ago, and he was probably too jittery to make an accurate guess now anyway.

He'd encountered one more Klingon, but this one hadn't gone down nearly as easily as the last two. In fact, the Klingon had spotted Pavel first. The Klingons walked heavily, so Pavel could usually hear them coming, but this one had caught sight of him from quite a way off. Pavel had started and spun around as a loud, guttural shout had suddenly echoed through the corridor, and barely had time to register the sight of the fiery disruptor blast screaming toward him. He'd managed to dodge it, but lost his footing in the process and gone down on his back, banging his elbow painfully on the floor. He'd heard the Klingon charging toward him and sat up in time to get off a single shot. The Klingon had roared in pain, but Pavel had only nicked its leg, because it still came at him, disruptor raised for another try. They'd fired at virtually the same time, but Pavel was a little quicker. The Klingon stumbled and the disruptor shot went wild, hitting the ceiling above Pavel's head and setting off a crackling explosion of showering sparks. Blinking through the hot, acid-smelling rain, Pavel had fired again as the Klingon went down. Two more shots later, it was safely reduced to a lightly smoking heap of dead flesh, cloth, and leather.

Pavel had escaped miraculously unscathed aside from a bruised elbow, but now he was an absolute basket case. The fact that that one Klingon had managed to catch him at unawares had all but shattered his confidence—sure, he'd been lucky and gotten away this time, but if something like that happened again, Pavel was not at all sure that Fate would be so kind to him twice in a row.

To make matters worse, his phaser power was gone. He was a sitting duck.

He'd thought about trying to leave this deck and go find Altoro or someone, or even try to work his way back to the upper decks. It wasn't running chicken from his post if he couldn't do a thing to protect it anyway, he reasoned. But in the all-but-nonexistent light, Pavel was too disoriented to find the entrance to any of the Jeffries tubes. He'd considered trying to contact someone, and then realized that he didn't have his communicator with him. So now he was mentally kicking himself over that, as well as trying to keep his head when every nerve felt like it was crackling with anxious tension and every little sound made him jump while sending his heart into a fluttering frenzy.

He couldn't very well use the comm. panels, either. There wasn't much that anyone on the bridge could do for him, and anyone else who wasn't busy fighting the Klingons was quite literally locked up in a lab or weapons bay somewhere. Besides, the comm. panels were too out in the open. Pavel didn't feel safe standing right in the middle of a corridor chattering into the wall where it would be all too easy for a Klingon to overhear and come after him.

For now, Pavel was standing in one of the side corridors. He'd found one brightly-glowing panel that provided him with semi-decent visibility, and there were corners a near enough distance away on either side of him that he was reasonably sure he'd be able to hear any Klingons coming before they were able to spot him. Pavel was _not_ about to let anyone sneak up on him again. It wasn't like he'd be able to do much if the Klingons _did_ come toward him, but at least he'd have a chance of possibly slipping off before they discovered his little hiding place. For the moment, the passageways were completely silent. Still, Pavel wasn't just sitting here wasting time. He was currently trying to figure out if he could get his bearings again, if he could work out exactly where he was and thereby determine the closest means of escape.

He'd been at this for a number of minutes and he'd tentatively concluded that he was located somewhere near rec. room nine. Pavel didn't frequent this particular deck very often, so he couldn't be positive, but he thought that if he followed this passageway to the left for fifty feet or so, turned into the adjoining corridor, followed it all the way down, and then turned right, he'd make it to the section of the deck that housed the majority of the maintenance areas. From there, he thought as he stared down the hall in his intended direction, Pavel should easily be able to find an entrance to the Jeffries tubes, and then, even if he couldn't find his way back to the bridge or get into an armory, he would at least be relatively safe inside the tunnels.

He had just made up his mind to follow that plan when he started violently as a deep rumbling voice behind him spoke from right over his shoulder. "Ensign."

Pavel screamed so loud in Spock's face that the Vulcan's eyes actually went wider, as if he was surprised by the sheer volume of the sound that burst from the smaller man's lungs. The terrified shriek still echoed through the corridor even when Pavel's screeching faltered and cut off as he realized that it _was_ only Spock—looking a bit ghostly as the illumination from the panel in the wall made his unusually pale skin glow stark white and deepened the shadows of his face and hair, but only Spock nonetheless. Well, probably deaf Spock now. The scream had been loud even to Pavel's hearing, which meant that it had quite likely pierced Spock's sensitive eardrums. For now the Vulcan had backed off a step or two, and was currently regarding Pavel with a somewhat sideways look, brows a tiny bit furrowed, looking vaguely mistrustful and more uncertain than the seventeen-year-old had ever seen him. Which was probably completely justified, Pavel thought. He had an increasingly bad feeling that he had just performed a brilliant imitation of that old painting, _The Scream_.

Pavel's face was burning hot with embarrassment. He doubted that the dim lighting did anything to hide the fact from Spock's excellent eyesight, but after a short time, however, Spock apparently decided that Pavel was not immediately going to screech in his face again. Once they'd both recovered (more or less), Spock informed Pavel that all of the intruders had been dealt with. The hostages had been freed, the Klingons had all been killed or captured, the _Enterprise_ had her shields back, and the enemy ship was retreating. Turbolifts were still out of commission, but with the exception of a few areas, the doors were no longer jammed, and Scotty had even managed to get the main the lighting back on the upper decks. Unfortunately, the _Enterprise _had lost three people to disruptors, and numerous others were injured with everything from bruises to crushed ribs. No one had been able to get in contact with Pavel, which, it was now realized, was due to his lack of a communicator. Altoro hadn't been answering either—alive, unconscious, or dead, they weren't sure yet. Kirk had sent Spock and another officer, one for each ensign, up to those decks to search for the two of them.

Cheeks still warm, Pavel informed the Commander that he'd killed all three of the Klingons that he'd encountered. Spock gave a brief nod of satisfied acknowledgement, and, after confirming that Pavel was uninjured, flipped open his communicator to report that Ensign Chekov was alive and well. Finally, Spock had ordered teams to the deck to sweep it and dispose of the bodies, and then reported that he and Chekov were headed back up to the upper decks.

With that, the worst of the crisis was over.

Spock led the way as the two officers accessed the Jeffries tubes and began the journey back up.

Pavel spent the next ten minutes apologizing.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note: **The final installment, one instance in which Spock did not scare Chekov. I have mixed thoughts as to the quality of this one (surprising, isn't it?) and it came out longer than I'd intended, but I hope it is at least partially enjoyable.

Also, I would be remiss if I did not take some time to thank GothicCheshire for offering her beta assistance and lending suggestions.

Once again, thank you to all who have read, reviewed, favorited, and alerted. It is all appreciated.

* * *

**Chapter 6**

He couldn't do it. He'd had no hope of it. Pavel felt his mind slipping within a matter of mere seconds, and from there it was like a landslide, falling farther and farther down with rapidly-increasing speed every second, pulling Pavel tumbling along with it. He wanted to hold on. He couldn't. Dimly in some corner of his consciousness he could still hear Spock's distant voice, shouting at him to block it out, but soon even that was gone, and with it all of Pavel's connection to the outside world.

The transition happened so fast that it was disorienting. Suddenly Pavel was in the halls of the _Enterprise_, running. He flew down the corridor as fast as he could, skidding around corners, pushing other crewmembers aside, yelling at everyone to move out of the way. Then he was in the transporter room. Kirk and Hikaru were falling, and Pavel had to save them—

Pavel's whole body seemed to lurch sickeningly. Suddenly, he remembered. _No, no—_

He knew what was coming. He struggled suddenly against the mounting dread, trying to free himself, to free his mind and his thoughts and his body, but it wasn't working.

Everything seemed to fast-forward. Pavel was strangely helpless as it all flew by in a blur, and then abruptly, it seemed to slow down. Or rather, _he_ slowed down. His fingers lagged as he moved them over the console. He tried to move them faster, but they wouldn't go. If anything, they went even slower. _No…_ He knew what was happening. No, no, he had to stop it—

Pavel heard the wild, half-hysterical sobbing of frustration wrenched from his own chest as his fingers seemed to stick and drag like they were submerged in something thick and heavy, regardless of how hard he tried to make them go faster. _No, no, NO, NO—!_

Alarms screamed from the console, battering Pavel's eardrums. On the screen, one of the targets slipped. Pavel stared in horror. He went to grope to catch it, but he was pinned in his chair. He couldn't move at all; he could only stare and sit there, slumped and lazy, as that little dot fell farther and farther, faster and faster, slipping away for the excruciatingly long few seconds until it disappeared entirely.

The scream was earsplitting and agonized. It sounded ragged and full of terror, and when it abruptly cut off, it was like a punch in the chest.

He'd lost her.

Spock materialized on the transporter—alone. No, no, that was wrong; she should be there…

She wasn't.

Nothing was real in that moment except for the empty, futilely outstretched hand, and the shocked, heartbroken look on Spock's suddenly all-too-expressive face.

That, and the pain—the pain of death and failure, and the even worse pain of choking, overwhelming guilt as Spock slowly turned to look at Pavel, brown liquid pools staring into Pavel's eyes, staring silently and looking so hurt and betrayed and unbelievably _sad_. Pavel was drowning in it. He couldn't breathe at all.

_Why didn't you do something?_

Spock's gaze turned accusatory. His eyes, shockingly dark, drilled into Pavel, piercing him, burning him. Pavel felt himself slammed back into the chair, and though there was nothing there near his throat, he felt as if something was physically choking him.

_Why didn't you do something?_

Everything disappeared then, and Pavel's entire line of sight filled with a huge view of Vulcan. Mute with horror, pinned in place and unable to look away, Pavel saw great mountains and grand buildings breaking apart, tumbling down and being swallowed up by the gaping jaws of the enormous fissures that seemed to be opening across every inch of ground. And the people…there were people everywhere—men, women, elders, children—screaming in incoherent terror, running about like mad things, shrieking to each other, clinging to each other, weeping as their world shattered around them. Vulcans were crushed under falling debris, dismembered by sharp metal fragments, and swallowed, screeching, by the yawning ground. Bodies littered the hard ground, some whole, some in pieces, some with discernable features, some crushed beyond recognition. Others lay dying on the ground, hopelessly maimed, weeping like children while still others stumbled about the ensuing wreckage, screaming futilely for their loved ones.

Pavel almost couldn't tell their tearful hysteria from his own. His face was soaked as he huddled there sobbing, begging whoever it was—someone, anyone—to make it stop.

Then a great collective cry, horrible beyond description, went up as the planet began to collapse fully. The Vulcans collapsed with it. They literally shattered, every last one of them, crumbling like dusty statues, shrieking and bleeding and dying, their bodies breaking apart in a tumble of pain, carnage, and terror. The sky darkened, filled with dust, and Pavel seemed to watch from above as the entire planet finally crumbled, flashing fire, sucked in on itself, and vanished in a wink of white-hot light.

Realizing he was still huddled in the seat behind the transporter, Pavel felt his distraught gaze drawn helplessly to the platform where Spock's unmoving form still stood. The once-proud Vulcan now stood with his head drooped and shoulders slumped. He looked totally empty. He was no more than a shell, now; inside was nothing but a bottomless pit of unfathomable loss, and grief, and pain, pain, pain…

'You caused him that pain…'

Pavel's head jerked up again, startled and searching through the blur of tears. Had he really heard the words? "Wh…What?"

The transporter room began to fade at the edges, but Pavel hardly noticed. There was another figure standing in the chamber with him, recognizable as probably humanoid, but nothing more. The voice, however, was clear enough, and, Pavel now realized, real. 'He's in so much pain—look at him.'

He didn't want to, but he had no control over his own body. Pavel looked back at Spock.

It was unbearable.

The voice still sounded sad. 'You did that to him. All of that pain… You caused it.' Pavel's heart rate quickened. 'Why? You could have stopped it, but you didn't.'

"I—I—" He was choking on words. He didn't know what to say, didn't even think he could form a coherent thought.

'Why would you do that?' the voice said, sounding heartbroken. 'How could you do that to him…to us?'

_Us?_ What—what did—

A stab of horror shot through Pavel suddenly. He hadn't even realized that the transporter room had been fading more and more around him during the course of the voice's presence, so that now it was nothing more than a paling smear. But that wasn't what jolted him—as the room faded, the speaking figure had been coming into focus.

Pavel could see her clearly now. She was small and slight, clad in a form-fitting, grayish-brown dress with a hood of plain cloth wrapped around her head, covering most of her rich brown hair and framing her face. Her features were fine and slender, but soft, with big, doe-like brown eyes. She could no longer be called young, but even so, she would have been beautiful if not for her sad expression, and the slamming realization that hit Pavel next.

This was her. Spock's mother.

The one he—Pavel—had lost.

'Why didn't you do something, Pavel? Why didn't you save me?' she asked, big brown eyes staring mournfully into his. Around them, the environment was shifting. It was still too blurred to make out, but the sanitized white and blue colors of the transporter room were being traded out for brown, dark, shadowy hues. Spock was gone, too—the only elements that remained of their previous surroundings were the woman and Pavel himself.

The new environment began to solidify. Pavel found himself surrounded by rock, inside a vast cavern with a high, vaulting ceiling and lit sparely by a dim, fiery light. His heart pounded, blood roaring in his ears, as he realized in horror where they must be. No, no, he didn't want to see this…it was already too much…

He was going to hyperventilate.

'Hadn't he lost enough?' Spock's mother asked, her eyes continuing to pierce Pavel's unwaveringly. Something about her unnerved him—beyond all the guilt, remorse, and general horror of the scenario, there was behind all that something that truly _scared_ him. He felt his guilt and panic growing at her next words. 'I was the only one who ever loved him.' She continued, her eyes filling with a deep, terrible sadness. 'There was only person in the universe who ever truly loved him, and you took that away from him.'

"It was an _accident_!" Pavel finally screamed out in grief and despair, his voice raw with relentless tears. "I tried to save you; I tried, I tried…"

'Do you think that matters to _him_?' she demanded. 'He was already losing his whole planet, his _home_.' Her voice quivered with emotion. 'He shouldn't have had to lose his mother, too, the last thing in the universe remaining to him— You could have at least spared him that!'

"I—I—t-tried…"

'Did you?' she asked softly. Something was wrong with her. She seemed…dangerous. She seemed to grow slowly, gradually, to go from a small-framed, delicate thing into a looming monstrosity. Her once-fine features twisted in malevolence, seeming to stretch grotesquely. 'You could have been faster. You weren't, and now he has nothing.' Her voice rose to a shriek. 'And it's all your fault!'

"No, no, no, no…" He didn't even know what he was denying. He was cowering before her, curled into a ball, trying to hide, trying to block out the words he knew were true…

'That's right,' the woman hissed. The cavern walls were starting to crumble around them, raining stone from the ceiling. 'It's true. It's true, and you know it!' It was a snarl, and then her voice came back down to a level that was even more frightening and dangerous in its evenness. 'Think of all the suffering you caused him. You can't even fathom it. How do you think it will be, to feel it like you deserve…'

Her hands were claws. She was still human in form, but only barely—she was a demon now, a distorted, seething monster. She stepped toward him as he lay sobbing in guilt and horror on the ground.

A sudden glimpse of movement, separate from the shuddering rock, caught both of their attention. A tall figure strode out of the shadows, its steps steady and deliberate. Pavel eventually recognized it as Spock. He stared up at the towering Vulcan shape, mute with fear. Spock's eyes were black and cold, almost soulless, somehow making him look even more dangerous than the hideous mockery of the woman. He wore no other expression, but kept his gaze locked on the demon as he began to raise his hand.

Suddenly, it seemed to Pavel that she was no monster; she was only a little, delicate, beautiful woman once more, the mother her son had lost. She was looking at Spock, meeting his eyes in something like astonishment. Her voice was gentle and sweet as she said in mild surprise, 'You came—'

She never finished. A bolt of red-white light suddenly flew from Spock's outstretched hand, and the woman immediately crumpled to the ground. Pavel stared in wordless, wide-eyed horror at the body, and then felt something inside his mind start to slip. His whole world seemed to blink with a flash of utterly confused dizziness, tearing free…

And suddenly it was all gone. The cave, the corpse, the undertone of fire…it all vanished in an instant. Pavel was lying in the grass; there was darkness and cool night air, and above, a blue-black stretch of calm, starry sky.

Pavel didn't even notice. He remained curled in a protective ball, staring sightlessly at nothing, quiet and completely still. His mind was blank of all thought, and everything was a vacant, incoherent blur…

"_Ensign. Ensign! Ensign Chekov!"_

Something was shaking him.

"_Ensign Chekov. Mr. Chekov, do you hear me? Pavel! Pavel Chekov!"_

Nothing registered. The universe was standing still; time, place, and existence meant nothing. He was suspended, drifting, and then not at all…

There was a dim, barely-realized sensation of cool fingers on his forehead, and then something zapped him. It was a small, harmless charge, a split-secondary pulse of strange electricity into his brain, but it brought Pavel jolting suddenly, gasping, back to awareness.

Spock was leaning over him, but quickly sat back now, giving Pavel space as he came back to consciousness. Pavel uncurled fast, still gasping, his lungs working frantically as if he couldn't possibly suck in enough air. For the first few moments he was completely disoriented. Where was he? Was it all gone? He lay on the ground, looking wildly about in a panic, taking in the quiet clearing, the sky above, the shadowy form of Spock kneeling next to him…and a way off, the dark, vague lump of the alien's corpse, lying dead on the ground, fallen where Spock had shot it. But it was the sight of the phaser, now back in its holster at Spock's hip, that brought the full memory of the nightmare all flooding in.

The next thing he knew, Pavel was sobbing uncontrollably, overcome with grief and horror. That thing, whatever it was, had ripped into his mind, altered his reality, and he'd been totally helpless to stop it; he couldn't hide, he couldn't hide… And the woman, the planet, all those people…all the _death_…god, so much death, and blood, and pain…

He couldn't take it. Somehow, without thinking, he lunged for the nearest person and latched onto Spock. He was so hysterical with the storm of terror and anguish that he hardly even felt Spock stiffen in surprise as Pavel mindlessly grabbed onto him, flinging his arms around the Vulcan's thin waist and blindly burying his face in Spock's midsection. Pavel was a child again, hiding, weeping from the nightmare and seeking, from the only comfort he could get, safety and protection from the horror and from his own fear. For a while, he just laid there—a tiny seventeen-year-old infant, clinging to his first officer as if that first officer was the last solid thing in the universe.

It was awful, all so awful…

But then, impossibly, it all began to ease a little. In the tiny shred of clarity, Pavel realized for the first time that he was, startlingly—or it would have been, if he'd been coherent enough to register startlement at the moment—actually clutching a Vulcan. And then somewhere it dawned on him that Vulcans were touch-telepaths…then Pavel felt it clearly. He didn't know exactly how the Vulcan was doing it, but he could feel Spock projecting thoughts over him, a gentle steady wave of _calmcalmsecurityyou'resafepeacefulbestillcalmit'sg onenoneedtofearpeacefulcalm_

Pavel let it wash over him, soothing him gradually until the terror began to subside and he finally stopped trembling. He stayed still, eyes leaking slowly, as he did his best to banish the last of the horror. But now came the rest of the grief, and the overwhelming guilt. The moment the fear ceased, Pavel sagged against Spock with a fresh wave of tears, this time of remorse. "I'm sorry," he wept, his voice muffled from where his face pressed into Spock's stomach as he sobbed into the blue uniform, tears soaking through the fabric. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry…I'm sorry…"

Spock didn't respond and let him cry.

* * *

"Alright, kid, I'm lettin' you go." Dr. McCoy, looking a tiny bit frazzled but hiding it well, cast a slightly concerned eye over the ensign sitting at the far end of the table. "Go ahead to your shift tonight if you feel up to it—_if_, I'm saying—but try to take it kinda easy for the first thirty hours or so, alright?"

Pavel nodded obediently, meeting the doctor's serious eyes.

"Now if you feel anything off at all, any depression or nightmares, flashbacks, anything like that, you let me know immediately, got it?"

Pavel nodded again. He felt a small wave of relief, glad that he was getting McCoy's seal of approval. The Doctor would've never let him out of sickbay if something was amiss, and Pavel had to admit he was happy to be leaving. It meant this was all over, that horrible experience on that strange planet—officially over, anyway. Pavel still shuddered to think about it.

Somehow he felt that it should've made it less scary, looking back on it now, knowing in objective terms what had happened down there on M-136. 'Scientific' wasn't the right word—because honestly, they _didn't_ know all the details. In fact, they didn't know any; they could only guess at what had actually, technically happened. They couldn't even study the creature. Spock had killed it, but by the time a second landing party had arrived to recover the first one, the body had apparently been nothing more than a putrid puddle, as if the thing had just liquefied. Useless, as far as any hope to take viable DNA samples. Still, the concept was clear: some powerful alien mind had forced its way inside Pavel's head in such a way that completely altered his perception of reality, so thoroughly that nothing of the true world made any difference—when his worst demons had been resurrected out of his subconscious and given a dimension of their own, the only thing that mattered was the nightmare inside in his brain. Even that, though, had been real enough—not technically speaking, of course, but sufficiently concrete that Spock had had to follow Pavel in to get him back.

For himself, Pavel supposed he was content enough. The entire experience was like a half-healed wound, still raw around the edges, but bearable and certain to heal with time…though it would almost definitely leave scars. It had been a considerable source of apprehension for Pavel over the last few days; physically, he was unharmed, but for the previous forty-eight hours during which McCoy had cautiously kept him confined to sickbay under observation for psychological symptoms, he'd been unable to quit worrying about the little niggling thought in the back of his head, concerned that when the Doctor analyzed his psych evals, he'd find something seriously wrong with him. But to his immense relief, McCoy was letting him go, which meant that Pavel was of sound mind as well as sound body. Sound _enough_ mind, anyway. He did feel fine enough for the time being, but he supposed that could still remain to be seen.

It was Spock that he was more worried about.

Spock had been affected by that thing on the planet, too. He'd been able to ward off the initial attack. The alien had been strong, but even Pavel, a human with relatively little experience, knew that Vulcan mental shields were a powerful thing, more so than a lot of people realized. The creature hadn't been able to get past Spock's barriers to plunge him into a personal hell, but the one it had created for Pavel had been potent enough on its own. Enough that, from what Pavel could tentatively guess at, it had stolen Pavel far enough away from the real reality that in order to get him back out of it, Spock had had to put his shields down and essentially dive in after, willfully throwing himself into what initially had been only Pavel's illusion, only Pavel's nightmare.

He'd brought them both out of it. He'd found Pavel, he'd killed the creature, he'd shattered the awful illusion. He'd been Pavel's savior, his lifeline to cling to when Pavel at last came out of it, incoherent and mindless with terror. He'd been his anchor when Pavel had been beset by grief, drowning in his own unbearable sorrow and guilt. He'd been his solace, taking away the worst when Pavel thought he would die from it.

Yes, Spock had saved him. The last thing Pavel remembered from that harrowing night was being half-crumpled on the ground and hanging onto Spock, crying into him softly but forcefully and not being able to stop, probably still half-mad with distress and misery. Nothing came to mind after that; he'd probably worn himself out and fallen asleep without realizing it. The next thing he recalled was waking up in sickbay, but apparently it had been a couple hours after Pavel supposed he'd dozed off that Hikaru's recovery party had located the two missing officers sheltering in a shallow cave, both of them completely dead to the world. Spock, however, had alarmed everyone. He had been out cold—not merely asleep but thoroughly unconscious, and Hikaru had urgently called for a beam-up when the normally hyper-alert Vulcan remained unresponsive even when the rescuers had repeatedly shaken and called out to him. Allegedly it had given McCoy the scare of his life, and the Captain too when the news had reached him. And the worry was only compounded when they learned what had happened down there on the planet, prior to the rescue.

When Spock had eventually come to, he'd assured the agitated doctor by insisting that he was, in fact, perfectly unharmed. McCoy, however, had been having none of it. Pavel could understand why—powerful as Vulcan minds were, they were also much more sensitive than a human's. Spock's mind was undoubtedly tough but if it _had_ been damaged in some way, since Vulcans were so dependent on that aspect of their beings, the damage would be much more devastating for him than it would be for a human, with serious mental and possibly even physical ramifications. And since Spock had been, essentially, comatose when they'd found him, McCoy refused to count for one second on the blind assumption that no such injury had been suffered, despite Spock's insistence that his trance had been self-induced—that he'd in fact been scanning his _own _mind for any damage from the invasion—and repeated assurances that he was in perfectly excellent condition, thank you, Doctor.

Pavel didn't know what to think. On one hand, he trusted Spock; if the Vulcan insisted that he was fine, Pavel would generally take him at his word. But on the other hand, Pavel couldn't help but share some of McCoy's anxiety. If Spock in fact _had_ somehow suffered harm as a result of exposing his mind to that thing—_to save you_, Pavel thought at himself, and winced inwardly, letting the thought trail off. A part of him protested that this whole thing was unfair, that Pavel was being released while Spock was still not officially out of the danger zone. Pavel's psych evals showed him fit to leave, and probably the only reason for it, he now realized, the only reason he wasn't still drowning in guilt and trauma, was because Spock, that night on the planet as Pavel had clung to him, had taken it away. But how much of it had actually just gone away, Pavel had to wonder, and how much of it had Spock simply taken upon himself?

Inside McCoy's office, Pavel heard the door chime. McCoy called out distractedly, "Come on in."

The doors slid open and Kirk himself peeked through, glancing about anxiously. "Am I interrupting anything, gentlemen?"

McCoy waved his hand in absentminded, if tired, dismissal. "Not at all, Captain. I think we're just about finishing up."

Kirk stepped inside and let the doors slide shut behind him, but as he glanced between Pavel, McCoy, and the occasional random area inside the office, he seemed uncharacteristically shy and on edge. To his credit, though, he genuinely tried to smile at Pavel, even though the result was weak. "Recovery coming along, Ensign?" he asked, making a feeble attempt at sounding like his usual friendly, charismatic self.

Pavel nodded. "Yes, sir," he replied politely.

"I'm releasing him back to duty," McCoy chimed in. "Just make sure you don't work him too hard for the first day or two, Captain."

Kirk smiled thinly. "I'll try not to. And that's great; I'm glad to hear it," he added, but more than anything, he just looked worried. "Um…actually, I'd like to talk to you a little bit, Ensign, if that's alright…"

"Of course, Keptin," Pavel answered, inwardly growing increasingly puzzled by the Captain's apparent lack of energy and usual self-assurance.

"Well, if you two don't need me, gentlemen, I'm gonna step out," McCoy said, running a weary hand over his face before he could think to stop himself. He made as if to leave, but Kirk, still standing near the door, intercepted him before the Doctor could exit.

Kirk leaned in toward McCoy and as he spoke, his face was the picture of barely-repressed anxiety. "Bones, how's Spock doing?" he asked, keeping his voice low but obviously not caring that Pavel was overhearing.

"Alive, not comatose, stable from what I can tell," McCoy answered shortly. "Didn't you see him out there?"

"Uhura was there talking to him; I didn't want to interrupt." Kirk paused, nibbling his lower lip uneasily. "Are you releasing Spock too?"

McCoy shook his head helplessly, his tone softening. "Not yet, Jim," he said, sounding a bit apologetic. "I don't want to let him go until I'm absolutely, positively certain that his mind suffered no ill effects from what happened to him down there. I'm keepin' him here under observation a while longer, where I can keep an eye on him in case anything belatedly crops up."

Kirk looked even more worried and hastily asked, "He'll be okay, right?"

"He's probably fine, Jim," McCoy said, trying to calm him. "He hasn't displayed any issues since coming out of that initial blackout and his psych evals look normal; I'm probably just being paranoid. But I just want to be sure." Kirk fell silent then, and McCoy regarded him with a sympathetic look. "Don't worry too much about him, Jim," he told the Captain gently. "He'll probably be fine." McCoy stepped out then, but neither Kirk nor Pavel missed the big "probably" that seemed to loom in the middle of every reassurance.

Kirk was quiet a little longer, then let his breath out and walked over to the table, pulling out a chair and sitting down across from Pavel. "How you doing, Mr. Chekov?" he asked, making no pretense this time to sound falsely bright, but genuinely interested in Pavel's well-being.

"I am fine, Keptin," Pavel replied truthfully.

"I'm glad to hear it," Kirk said again, meaning it. "I heard what happened to you and Mr. Spock down on that planet. I'm…sorry you had to go through that." He paused for a moment, cleared his throat uneasily, and met Pavel's eyes again. "If you don't mind me asking—you don't need to give me any details, but I'd like an honest answer, if you're okay with giving one—you said that you and Spock got the same…um…scenario from the alien. What…exactly did it…show you?"

Even as Pavel hesitated momentarily, trying to formulate a response, Kirk waved a hand dismissively and amended his statement. "You don't have to describe it to me. Just…answer one thing for me, please?" He looked up at Pavel and when the young officer didn't object, Kirk finally took a deep breath and spoke the low, reluctant words. "Was…was it Vulcan?"

Pavel's eyes flickered away from the Captain's for a second before he nodded silently.

Despite the fact that he'd guessed at it himself, Kirk still looked like he'd been punched. "I was afraid of that," he whispered. His head was in his hands and his fingers were pushed up into his dark blond hair, making it stick up at odd angles. Without looking up, he said, "So Spock saw it too." It was more of a bleak statement than a question.

"Yes, Keptin," Pavel answered quietly.

For a while Kirk didn't offer any response. When he finally did, he sounded wretched. "Why does everyone have to use that against him." It was, again, a statement. A brief silence, and then more dull words. "And I'm just as bad."

It took Pavel a moment to decipher that tone, but when he did he was almost shocked at the realization, and even more so to hear it admitted so openly: Kirk felt guilty.

Kirk was blameless in what had happened to Spock on M-136. The Captain couldn't have stopped that creature anymore than Pavel could have, and he certainly never would have wished such a thing on Spock. But it was the simple knowledge—the knowledge that Spock had been made to suffer by being forced to relive the destruction of his people, his planet, the loss of everything he had. The same horrible things that Kirk himself had once flung deliberately in Spock's face.

"_You NEVER loved her!"_

Those words and the enraged roar that had followed them seemed to echo clearly through Pavel's head, causing him to shiver outwardly without meaning to. Every memory he had of that day chilled him, even more so after the recent encounter. But he thought it was that scene on the bridge that haunted him the most.

Kirk's eyes were still downcast, though, so maybe he hadn't seen Pavel's involuntary shudder.

Initially when it had happened, the only thing Pavel had been able to think about was his own guilt and fear. He'd never thought to be angry with another, never thought to blame anyone but himself. It hadn't been until much later—a day, or more—that it truly occurred to Pavel what Kirk had really done there, when he goaded Spock. When it finally _did_ dawn on him, he really hadn't known what to think. He hadn't felt angry so much as just…shocked. Shocked, confused, sad, hurt. It had, on Kirk's part, been a horribly callous, ruthless thing to do. Up until that point, Spock had remained remarkably calm. For all that he'd just watched firsthand as his whole world had just died, been _murdered_, right in front of him, any oblivious onlooker would've never thought anything was amiss. That Spock had just carried on, capable of command and critical thinking when any lesser person would have been utterly nonfunctional with grief and trauma…that took some serious thick skin. As unbelievably awful as the entire thing was, it was hard not to admire the Vulcan's bravery, how astonishingly _tough_ he'd been throughout it all. To be honest, it was still hard not to. Some people would've condemned Spock's resolve as heartlessness, called him a cold and unfeeling robot, but Pavel found that a large part of him had to respect, even commend the Vulcan's inner strength.

In a way it was sort of selfless, even. The rest of the crew had been reeling from the disaster as well, and with Pike gone, it was Spock who had been responsible for holding them all together. There hadn't been time for personal grief.

But even Spock, it turned out, had a breaking point. And Kirk had made sure, intentionally sure, that he reached it.

Kirk had defied him, attacked him, taunted him. Even so, Spock's self-control had been hard to break. He ignored the mocking, rode with every verbal punch, but it was that last shouted accusation that had finally been the metaphorical straw that broke the camel's back. And when it broke…it exploded.

It was hard to say which one of them had been the predator, whether it had been Spock for suddenly transforming into a violent, whirling demon or Kirk for having first stabbed into him, driving in the knife and twisting hard. Pavel wondered what had horrified the other onlookers more—Spock going off, or Kirk pushing him to it. Even Pavel for himself wasn't sure he rightly knew, for who had truly caused the worst injury? Kirk had been bruised for weeks following the altercation. How long had it taken Spock's wounds to heal?

It had hurt to watch, every individual second of it. But if Pavel was honest he supposed that a measure of good had come out of it. Mutinous, insensitive, and downright cruel as Kirk's actions had seemed then, Pavel thought he understood why he'd done it. It hadn't been to hurt Spock; it had been that Kirk was doing what he honestly believed was best. It was loyalty to Pike, it was a desire to save Earth, it was a drive to stop Nero before any other innocent people were killed. Ultimately it had worked, and no one could really deny that Kirk had to get some credit for that. And maybe, in an odd way, he even deserved credit for defying his acting captain—he'd done what he had to in order to take command when it had seemed to him that that was the only option, and in any case, deliberately provoking a Vulcan was _not_ a gutless thing to do. Although Kirk might've thought twice about it if he'd known the kind of reaction he was going to get—getting knocked senseless and beaten within inches of his life probably had not been part of the plan.

The entire thing had been appalling; there was no denying that. Kirk was no villain, though. There had been a valid reason for the mutiny (Pavel couldn't bring himself to call it a good one), some positive things had come out of it in the long run, and especially now, watching his stricken captain across the table and knowing how terrible he obviously felt about what he'd done, he couldn't be too condemned. Pavel knew, though, that he would never forget how awful Spock had looked as he walked robotically off the bridge after the altercation, after Kirk had mercilessly ripped into him. Pavel couldn't hate Kirk for it, he never could. It wasn't unforgiven, but all the same, it wouldn't ever quite be okay, either.

So now they were both sitting here in silence, two guilty souls. It was unfair and sad, seeing Kirk look so vulnerable. _Maybe you're not as bad as you think,_ Pavel wanted to tell him. They were neither of them innocent, but horrible as Kirk's words were, they were still only words—words that couldn't have been spoken if not for what Pavel had done. He remembered the alien presence in his mind, accusing him, screaming at him…_"It's all your fault!"…_the whole event was just a nightmare, McCoy had told him. The Doctor hadn't made Pavel give him any details, but he had, very firmly, made the generalized statement: nothing that had been said in the course of that mental torture session was true. But Pavel had to wonder how much of it actually _was_. _You rubbed it in,_ Pavel thought at Kirk, _but I'm the one who lost her._

But he knew that if he spoke the words, he would cry again. The last thing he needed was to have blubbered all over _both_ of his commanding officers within the same week. Pavel swallowed the tightness in his throat and managed to speak, softly, but steadily. He had to give Kirk _some_ comfort, even if it was vague; he hated seeing his confident, energetic captain like this. "I zink he'll be okay, Keptin," Pavel said finally, even then praying it was true. And then, because the statement seemed to need more, he added, perhaps a bit awkwardly, "Mr. Spock is tough."

Despite his despondency, Kirk, having looked up, now gave a small smile and managed a soft huff of laughter through his nose. "That he is, Mr. Chekov," he acknowledged, his eyes filling with unconcealed affection for his First. "That he is."

These last couple days had been hard for Kirk too, Pavel realized, and it wasn't just a matter of guilt. The Captain was touchingly fond of his first officer; anyone who made the slightest observation could see it. When Spock had been found unconscious with his heart rate frighteningly low, every terrifying moment that was spent not knowing whether the Vulcan would come out of it undamaged, _if _he came out or even lived at all, must have been torture for Kirk.

Now, the Captain rose from his seat, grasping the edge of the table. "Thanks for letting me take up your time, Mr. Chekov," Kirk said, offering a little smile, and if he still didn't look truly at ease, at least his moment of weakness seemed to have passed. "But come on; I'll let you get back to your life." He motioned for Pavel to stand and Pavel did, nodding gratefully at the words and following Kirk toward the door. "We should probably head out the back way so we don't disturb them," Kirk commented, and the two men left the office accordingly, avoiding the section where Spock was and making for the most discreet exit from sickbay.

They'd barely taken three steps toward the main door, however, when they heard the distinct sound of a loud, irate tone coming from the adjoining chamber. "I don't care whether you think you're perfectly sound, you Vulcan! I told you you're stayin' here a while longer, and you're stayin'! Now get over it and stop your bellyachin'!"

"I am not 'bellyaching', Doctor; I am protesting your illogical decision to keep me confined to the medical facilities without necessity."

"It's necessary because I say so, dammit! So you're gonna sit your little green ass right there in bed and not get out until I tell you to!"

"And when, precisely, do you propose that will be, Doctor?"

"When I feel like it! Now shut up or I'll come over there and hypospray you into oblivion!"

The other voice fell silent, still managing to sound disgruntled even as it did so. It was only then that Pavel blinked, realizing he'd frozen mid-step. He glanced, a little wide-eyed, up at Kirk, who had also stopped beside him. The two met each other's eyes and Kirk grinned, a real one this time of genuine happiness and amusement. "Yeah," he remarked to Pavel, "I think he'll be just fine."

* * *

Two evenings later, though, Pavel still hadn't seen Spock. He assumed the First Officer was still confined to sickbay, unwillingly, no doubt, but Pavel hadn't been about to ask anyone who might know and he certainly wasn't going to go check himself. McCoy had been crankier than usual the past few days, which, for McCoy, was saying something. Pavel suspected it was the new medical staff. The _Enterprise_ had taken a few new nurses aboard recently, four young women who were all young, eager, and relatively inexperienced. According to McCoy, they were so clumsy and bumbling that Starfleet might as well have sent him a batch of one-legged chickens. On unicycles.

Pavel doubted they could be half as bad as all that. After all, they had qualified to serve on the _Enterprise_, which meant they must be at least competent. But Dr. McCoy could be a bit…_particular _at times, and tended to get downright cantankerous if he'd had an exhausting week. Most likely, the nurses had just come at a bad time. Still, McCoy insisted they needed help, serious help, and had taken it upon himself to train them, properly.

The first time Pavel had heard that, he'd impulsively sent up a silent prayer to the cold, uncaring universe for the nurses' well-being before he could stop himself.

Pavel himself was doing pretty well since his return to duty. It was good to have something productive to occupy his mind again, and he hadn't realized just how much he'd missed his console. He was back on the bridge, reunited with his beloved stellar cartography and with his friends and coworkers. Pavel still wasn't overeager to beam down to any more mysterious planets anytime soon, but he hadn't been having any nightmares, surprisingly, and was generally in a fairly good mood.

The resilience of youth, as Scotty would say. As if Scotty himself was even old.

All in all though, life seemed to be working its way pretty much back to normal easily enough, and that was fine with Pavel.

It was after 1900 on Thursday evening when Pavel was halfway out the mess hall that he heard his name being called and turned around to see McCoy hurrying toward him. The Doctor looked absolutely harassed. To his credit, he looked like he was at least handling it, but his hurried look, breathless tone, and the clump of hair sticking out awry on the right side of his head gave him away.

"Ensign Chekov! Ensign," McCoy broke off, coming to a stop in front of him as Pavel paused and faced the older officer. "You busy?" McCoy asked.

"No, Doctor, I was just heading back to my quar—"

"Good," McCoy interrupted, and shoved a tray of salad into Pavel's surprised hands. "Would you mind taking that to Spock for me? He's in sickbay," McCoy clarified, in case Pavel had forgotten.

"Um, no, sir, of course I don't mind," Pavel began, barely knowing what he was agreeing to as he tried to look the Doctor respectfully in the eye while simultaneously still attempting to balance the beverage on the tray that was threatening dangerously to tip over.

"Thanks, Ensign," McCoy replied, sounding genuinely relieved. "I'd do it myself, but I've got those four over there"—he waved his hand behind his head and Pavel peered around him to see four blue-clad young women clustered at one of the tables and chatting easily amongst themselves—"that I promised to take on a dinner date while I try to ram some medical sense into their heads." He sounded faintly disgusted for a moment, but then pointed at the salad tray. "You take that down to Spock, and make sure he eats it. The Commander's still got his logical panties in a wad because I haven't let him out of sickbay yet, but I'm planning on releasing him tomorrow if he behaves himself. But don't tell him I said that," he added quickly. "Take that tray to him; if he says he's not hungry, tell him 'bullshit'. Got it?"

Pavel was staring wide-eyed at the doctor, dimly horrified by the uncurbed disrespect in McCoy's hasty rant, and nodded dumbly.

"Thanks, kid," McCoy said in a rush; with that, he turned and hurried back toward his protégés.

Which left Pavel standing there stupidly for a minute with an unblinking, blankly shocked look, a tray of salad, and instructions to swear at his first officer.

Pavel turned and left for sickbay.

As he boarded the turbolift, he found himself feeling apprehensive. He hadn't seen Spock one-on-one since that night on M-136; when they were in sickbay together, there'd always been nurses or someone milling about, and the rest of the time Pavel had been asleep. The Vulcan made him nervous to begin with, and after so recently having had all that guilt over losing Spock's mother rammed down his throat, Pavel was more anxious to face him than ever.

Firmly, he told himself to stop it. McCoy had just asked him to take Spock a meal, not sit down and have a big heart-to-heart talk with him. It'd take Pavel all of twenty seconds, and there were probably nurses around there as well. _Buck up_, he commanded himself, employing one of McCoy's colloquialisms that the Doctor used on unreasonably fearful patients.

Pavel arrived outside of sickbay, took a calming breath, and stepped inside. He glanced around for Spock's bed and headed for it, and then stopped and did a double take when he realized that Spock was…asleep?

Pavel tiptoed a bit closer, peering carefully at the Vulcan, waiting for Spock to stir, but he didn't. Uncertain, Pavel looked around, and caught sight of Nurse Chapel, who was in one of the smaller back chambers, organizing some supplies. She caught his eye, smiled, and silently raised an index finger to her lips, indicating for Pavel to keep quiet.

He did as he was bidden, and looked back at Spock. The Vulcan in question was lying on his back, head turned to one side, forearms draped haphazardly over his chest, which rose and fell almost imperceptibly with his breathing, but he made not the slightest sound. His face looked completely relaxed.

"We are all children in sleep," Pavel had heard said somewhere once, and looking at the sleeping figure now, he almost believed it. Weird; he'd never seen Spock sleep. He didn't even really look childlike, just…kind of cute. Pavel blinked, surprised at the thought, and then considered it. Yeah, he decided after a few moments, it definitely felt weird applying that term to Spock—not that Spock wasn't good-looking; he just wasn't the sort most people would generally think of as the _"cute"_ type—but looking at him now, there was no denying that Spock really did look not just cute, but downright adorable. Something about how peaceful and oblivious he looked just produced an "awww" factor.

Spock should've been waking up; Pavel had seen Vulcan hearing in action and he knew that not even a cat's light footsteps would escape those sensitive pointed ears. And Pavel, though he didn't consider himself particularly loud or clumsy, was certainly no cat. Spock was probably just tired, he supposed. Who knew how much the incident on M-136 had truly taken out of him, and Pavel was reasonably certain that Spock hadn't been sleeping in sickbay over the past days either, at least not during the time Pavel was there. The man probably needed it. Or maybe, Pavel thought, Spock was comfortable enough here on the _Enterprise _to allow himself to let down his guard, relax completely, and just tune some things out.

Pavel didn't know which it was, but he found he kind of liked the second one better.

Moreover, he found he was relieved. Spock looked healthy and at ease, and McCoy had said he planned on releasing Spock the next morning. That meant that Spock was okay. Suddenly, Pavel felt a spontaneous burst of affection for him. He would never wish the Vulcan ill, of course, but it was a different thing to realize now that he actually _cared_ for Spock, not just as a fellow crewman or a senior officer, but as an individual. Pavel didn't know what he'd call his attachment: friend, brother, father figure; none of the usual ones seemed to fit. Brother and father were too close and familiar, and friend just sounded too…friendly. But maybe it was just that—an attachment, of no specific kind. And since it was there anyway, perhaps the terms didn't really matter.

Pavel crept over to one of the side tables and set the tray down quietly on top of it. It wasn't exactly doing what he was told, but given the circumstances, he didn't figure McCoy would mind too much.

Pavel started to leave, then glanced back at the Vulcan again, musing. Perhaps, now that he truly thought about it, he wasn't as frightened of Spock as he'd thought. M-136 had been a mixed experience for him, he realized. All of his inner demons had been poured out and set upon him all at once, trying to tear him apart. He didn't want to know how close they'd come to succeeding. Pavel had been rescued at the last moment; however, he'd come back to reality with his sensibilities, thoughts, and self-control in pieces. But then, after going through all of that, he'd come to feel oddly safe curled up against Spock—big, intimidating Spock, who, for as long as Pavel could remember, had always scared the daylights out of him.

Pavel had been harboring the guilt for so long, and he'd always refrained from doing anything about it. He was afraid to face Spock, afraid to go to him and apologize, afraid to admit to him that Pavel himself was at fault for what had happened. How _did_ you apologize for something like that, anyway? It hadn't been only trepidation, Pavel realized; it was helplessness.

M-136 had been the worst experience of his life: the invasion of his mind and subconscious, the complete inability to hide from the guilt and horror, the terrifying aftermath when reality finally returned to him…but in the end, after the nightmare ended and he'd lain there and wept, it had also been a release. At last, Pavel had let all the remorse, the pain, everything overflow in a huge wave of "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" And Spock had stayed, protecting him as it all came pouring out.

It wasn't total eradication, Pavel knew—he'd always feel partly responsible for what had happened, and he'd always feel guilty. But it was catharsis, and it was closure.

Pavel headed for the door, aiming a silent mental _thank you_ at his sleeping first officer—for staying with him, for forgiving him, for saving him more than once. Spock was always going to be something of a distant, forbidding figure, Pavel assumed. When he was that stern and unbreakably serious it was hard not to see him that way, and the eyebrows certainly weren't going anywhere. But Spock was an ally, too. He was a leader and a protector, and if he would never really be the warm, approachable type, well, it just wasn't in his nature. But that was okay. Pavel found that he liked Spock just fine as he was, and that was enough to decide that he no longer had to view him with fear.

* * *

The next time he saw Spock snap a homicidal alien's neck with a well-aimed punch to the side of the head, Pavel wasn't so sure.


End file.
